Making Sense of an Abundance of Knowledge to Inform Policymaking

A particular challenge for policymakers today is the abundance, not the scarcity, of knowledge. In 1998, the socio-biologist E.O. Wilson saw the need for synthesizers of knowledge "to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” Using scientific evidence to effectively inform policy requires better coordination of both the supply and demand of policy-relevant knowledge. This session considers different approaches to addressing these challenges: “knowledge and competence” centers, one-stop shops where the most important questions and answers can be identified and co-created by policymakers and scientists; “what works” centers that analyze the evidence base to determine what is and is not known to work in practice; and international systematic reviews, a rigorous approach to synthesizing the knowledgebase on a policy-relevant topic. After introducing these approaches, speakers will consider the lessons learned, merits, and transferability of these different, but complementary, approaches.