Alliance for Useful Evidence

We are delighted to announce that we are working with the ESRC - and others - to create an Alliance for Useful Evidence. We hope you will join us.

In a time of limited resource, there is a need to spend whatever money is available on the best, most successful approaches. And to identify these we need robust research and evidence. In some areas there is knowledge about what is - and what is not - effective, but in other areas there may be little known about what is successful. The situation is complicated further by the fact that there are many instances where research is available, but is not taken into account. We want the Alliance for Useful Evidence to ensure rigorous evidence is available, accessible, useable and considered appropriately.

If you are interested in promoting useful evidence in decision making across social policy, would like to connect to a global community of individuals and organisations from a range of sectors and backgrounds, whilst gaining access to stimulating debate, publications and events, then you should join the Alliance for  Useful Evidence.

Membership is free and open to any individual or organisation.

To sign up simply fill in this online form

Further details are available on the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Why is this needed?

As we noted in our Ten Steps blog series, there are a number of issues and challenges that can prevent evidence being used in decision making. We believe that many of these challenges can be overcome by ensuring that high-quality evidence has a stronger impact on the design and delivery of our own public services.

The UK Alliance for Evidence will provide a much needed focal point for improving and extending the application of research and evidence in the UK. We announced the UK Alliance for Evidence at an event in October 2011 and are now recruiting members. We believe there is huge value in developing a collective voice to advocate for decision makers to generate and use rigorous evidence, and to also aid collaboration and knowledge sharing across the Alliance.

We have already received a great deal of interest from organisations from around the world, and are partnering with the US Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy to learn from their expertise and involvement in the Obama evidence reforms.

The Alliance for Useful Evidence has also been endorsed in the recent Government "Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth" (see page 86).

We recognise that this agenda is not new. We also recognise that there are lots of organisations already doing excellent work in this field. The Alliance for Useful Evidence will not compete with or replace these; instead it is our intention to forge linkages with them, promoting learning and collaboration across different areas of policy.

NESTA commissioned a collection of essays to understand more about some of the organisations working in this area.

Read the 'Evidence for Social Policy and Practice' essays

Our aim is not to promote any particular method, but rather to act with others as an honest broker, raising the quality of both the supply of research and also the demand for it. We need to ensure that evidence is commissioned and carried out in ways that make it more likely to be used and useful; and we need to work with the users of evidence to make it easier for them to act on what's known. We recognise that even the best evidence can be imperfect or incomplete, but it's no longer legitimate for any members of the public, government and others to be ignorant of it.

Thank you for all the comments we have received so far about the development of the UK Alliance for Useful Evidence. We hope you will continue to be involved and join the Alliance for Useful Evidence as a member and collaborator in advancing the evidence agenda in the UK.

To join the Alliance for Useful Evidence simply fill in this form

Contact us

If you have any questions, ideas or experience you'd like to bring to this project we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch with Ruth Puttick in the Policy and Research team at ruth.puttick@nesta.org.uk.

The Alliance in the News

The Alliance for Useful Evidence has received widespread coverage in the media.  Here's a selection of some recent coverage:

Call for more evidence-based Whitehall policy
Financial Times, 25/10/11 A drive to ensure that scarce public money is spent only on policies that produce measurable results has been launched by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, a think-tank headed by the former No 10 policy adviser Geoff Mulgan.

It is establishing the UK Alliance for Useful Evidence, in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research Council, to act as a catalyst to both generate and promote use of evidence on interventions that work and those that don't, as policymakers struggle to squeeze maximum value from a shrinking public purse

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a20fc04-fe37-11e0-a1eb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1iOIklNqY

Where's the evidence? Policymakers should look at the facts
Guardian.co.uk 28/10/11 There's a new emphasis in Whitehall on the business case for research and evidence. But that tells in favour of evidence: making and delivering public policy will be more cost effective if it is more rational, based on knowledge rather than surmise, anecdote or mere belief. That's why we should welcome an initiative from Geoff Mulgan, chief executive of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) to create an Alliance for Useful Evidence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/oct/28/policymakers-wheres-the-evidence-nesta

Note to Politicians: Look for Evidence
Science Matters, The Times 03/11/11 Politicians scared to pursue evidence-based policies have much to learn from the scientists. When academics promote evidence-based policy, politicians often point out, correctly, that good evidence isn't always available before initiatives are introduced. But that is no excuse for failing to collect it afterwards. Redressing the evaluation gap is a goal of an admirable initiative that was launched in October. The Alliance for Useful Evidence, funded by NESTA, will promote better use of research when policies are formulated, and better analysis of their consequences.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/eureka/article3211828.ece (Online Times subscription needed)