Dear OTT Community,
All too often, we spend time theorising about how best to communicate evidence to inform policy. At OTT, we have been lucky to work with think tanks and funders who wish to inform policies. All too often, though, they rely on assumptions of policymakers' decision-making. In response, we have documented and shared research about the policymaking process over the years. Here is an article from 2014 that presents research from the United States, Britain and Australia: What do policymakers want?
More recently, we have been systematically interviewing users of evidence for a new series: Voices of Evidence Users. The series features interviews with:
- Jordanian parliamentarians
- Dr. Pamela Nakamba, economic advisor to the President of Zambia
- And many more policymakers from Latin America, Africa and Asia.
We hope to continue documenting the experiences and knowledge of the individuals that policy research funders, researchers, and think tanks try to inform and, with it, strengthen the assumptions on which they develop their strategies. Please contact us if you wish to support this effort.
Finally, don’t forget to register for the 2025 School for Thinktankers.
Until next month,
Enrique Mendizabal
OTT Founder & Director
This series shares lessons from OTT’s work as part of a project providing technical advisory support to EdLabs work to strengthen evidence use in education policy funded by the Jacobs Foundation.
Applications are now open for the School for Thinktankers 2025.
Join us in Barcelona, at Fundació Bofill (3 - 7 February 2025)
Join the African Education Research Funding Consortium (AERFC) on Monday, September 9, as they delve into the depths of inclusive and a more localised grant making practice for partners in Africa.
Semana de la Evidencia 2024 (co-organised by Hub de Evidencias para América Latina y el Caribe - Hub LAC) will take place from the 11th to the 16th of November 2o24.
