The Menu of Evidence (the Menu) is an online portal and searchable repository of the best available evidence on what works for improving outcomes for children, young people, families, and carers.

This guide helps policy-makers reflect on how policy and regulation can affect people, businesses and community, as well as its broader economic and competition impacts. The Australian government’s rigorous approach to policy-making seeks to ensure that the costs and benefits of new policy are understood...

This journal article describes a research project that was developed to generate timely, relevant evidence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to guide policy, practice and planning in New South Wales.

It is intended that this publication will serve to increase the accessibility of valuable evidence and experiences to policy-makers within Australia. The University of Queensland and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust also hope that it will encourage more partnership approaches toward developing public policy that...

Responding to calls for increased evidence-informed public health and increased impacts from research, the aims of this policy evidence brief are to present the main barriers to research evidence translation and utilisation in public health, and explore strategies that can address these barriers.

Blueprint Institute worked with Per Capita as part of the Evidence-Based Policy Research Project's 2022 iteration. This analysis used the Wiltshire Criteria to assess the evidence base for 20 federal and state bills.

The aim of this project is to coax more evidence-based policy decisions by all tiers of government by reviewing and rating 20 high profile government decisions against the Wiltshire business case criteria. The 2022 report is the fifth in the series. For the first time...

Over the last decade, Stats NZ has developed a powerful tool for policy-makers and researchers alike. Known as the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), it draws upon data from across the government and contains de-identified information for people living in New Zealand. In this paper, the...

Transparency is a prerequisite to enabling evidence-informed decision-making. In this study, the authors apply a transparency framework to assess the transparency of evidence usage in provincial policies issued by the governments of Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, and compare transparency in policy-making across the Canadian...

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of research – while it has increased the demand for evidence to inform decision-making, it has further disrupted both the policy-influencing and engagement activities that would usually accompany such research. This report is based on an analysis of...

This project investigated the role of science in the policy-making process in order to deepen understanding of the science-policy interface and the ways in which the scientific basis underpinning policy might be strengthened to better support good environmental decision-making.

The OECD has launched the 'Strengthening the Impact of Education Research' project. This publication reports on the first phase of the project. It maps the various structures, processes, actors and relationships that reinforce the quality, production and use of education research in policy and practice.

The widespread availability of data and analytics has extended into the public sector and policy-making. This policy brief summarises the various methods being used in practice to value datasets and how they compare.

This report sets out seven, evidence-informed principles for those working in the policy ecosystem. The authors hope that these principles, which are not set in stone, will prompt discussion and debate on childhood policy, including the way children are conceptualised in policy and the role...

Evidence for Democracy believes that Canadian scientists and the public played a significant role in pushing for the return of science-informed decisions in the federal government. In other words, grassroots advocacy and organising created real change, and influenced the shift toward evidence-informed decision making.

Highlighting gaps and limitations in national data related to people with disability, this report presents the first national data using the Disability and Wellbeing Monitoring Framework and Indicators developed by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

This policy paper focuses on actionable, evidence-based steps a newly elected federal government can take to address the current youth mental health crisis.

In the lead up to the 2022 federal election, the Roundtable proposes a set of research-informed policy benchmarks against which election proposals for improving work, care and family outcomes in Australia can be assessed.

This paper argues that while dams have come to perform an important symbolic function in Australian politics, there is no evidence that their economic function is proportionate to their cost.

In February and March 2022, Evidence for Democracy hosted 25 early-career researchers for their inaugural Science to Policy Accelerator program. This article outlines some of the program’s key takeaways about public policy, and how scientists and researchers can contribute to the science policy ecosystem in...

Researchers have a responsibility to link their work to the issues facing the world – to provide general insight, but also to help policy-makers evaluate how best to solve them, Jacquelyn Zhang writes.

Policy-making is a complex and nuanced process, where policy actors must make sense of constantly evolving information in order to deliver policies that best serve the needs of the people. In this study, the authors apply a framework to assess the transparency of evidence use...

This edited volume reports on the findings of a three-year ARC-funded project examining the application and use of big data, data linkage and related technologies in social policy.