This report summarises the outputs from a series of four seminars held at the Institute for Government between February and May 2012, organised in collaboration with the Alliance for Useful Evidence and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

The starting point was the finding in the Institute’s 2011 report that despite years attempting to make policy more evidence based, this was still seen to be an area of weakness by both ministers and civil servants. The aim of the seminars was to explore both the changing nature of the evidence landscape, but also to look at the barriers on both the supply and demand sides to better use of evidence and evaluation in policy-making.