Challenges for science advice

Gary Kass is the Deputy Chief Scientist at Natural England and a CSaP Policy Fellow Alumnus

In the last few years, there has been a slow awakening that the ‘demand side’ matters hugely if evidence is to inform policy effectively. A strong demand would mean that policy-makers and the Ministers they advise would ask for, expect and demand trustworthy evidence and analysis. The trouble is that the supply side cannot demand that the demand-side demands evidence! And without this demand, then the supply-side’s calls on policy-makers to make more use of evidence will fall on deaf ears.

To be effective science advisers face the overarching challenge of how to maximise their influence in policy. This will not come simply from presentation of ‘facts’. Susan Owens, in her excellent book on the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution made clear that securing influence requires skilful working within and across personal, professional and disciplinary networks. This must draw on and exploit contacts at all levels throughout the policy world, including networks within Parliaments and branches of Government and reaching out to others to maximise their influence.

In particular, the inherently complex, multi-faceted nature of many policy issues where science advice is really needed raises many questions around how science advisers might operate effectively with partners representing other disciplines and how they can involve wider stakeholder communities and publics in meaningful ways.

While science advisers, as individuals or as institutions, may hold significant prestige and exert strong convening power, their authority and respect cannot be assumed or taken for granted. Again, Susan Owens makes the point that cultivating trust is critical to ensuring influence. Establishing trustworthiness raises challenges around demonstrating accountability, transparency, and inclusivity and, crucially, demonstrating impact.

Another critical challenge is that those receiving the science advice must be ready, willing and able to do so and so establishing one or more ‘policy customers’ on the ‘demand-side’ for science advice is vital. The advice must speak to the recipients’ needs and must ‘make sense’ in terms they relate to. But the advice must also command legitimacy from both the science and policy communities; requiring science advisers to be alert to the political and practical context into which their advice is being offered - seeking pragmatism with integrity.

Simple transactional relationships are rarely sufficient to achieve this and collaboration and engagement are critical, built on trusted, durable relationships and partnerships. This becomes increasingly important as government departments and agencies look to access more evidence and expert science advice from a broad range of collaborators. Science advisers will, therefore need to strengthen deep and wide collaborative relationships with government, advising on both issues within individual departmental remits and on cross-cutting issues involving multiple departments.

In the last few years, there has been a slow awakening that the ‘demand side’ matters hugely if evidence is to inform policy effectively. A strong demand would mean that policy-makers and the Ministers they advise would ask for, expect and demand trustworthy evidence and analysis. The trouble is that the supply side cannot demand that the demand-side demands evidence! And without this demand, then the supply-side’s calls on policy-makers to make more use of evidence will fall on deaf ears.

Whether or not you subscribe to the metaphor of supply and demand, it’s more accurate to talk about ‘relationships’: both between the evidence and the policy and between the people involved in this relationship…This rarely happens as a simple transaction between one person who has knowledge, and one who wants that knowledge.

In a blog in October 2014, Kirsty Newman at the Department for International Development said, “But all our efforts will be for nothing if we don’t also manage to reach out and build demand for what we have to offer.” She says, that “an excessive focus on the supply, and a lack of consideration of demand, is a problem with many initiatives which aim to drive evidence-informed policy.”

And Mark Reed, now at Newcastle University, argues that knowledge exchange is an inherently social process; reinforcing the notion of relationship between people – that knowledge exchange is an act of communication.

Kirsty Newman helpfully set out three factors for improving the culture in which these relationships and communications play out:

• Capacity - Decision makers need to have the knowledge and skills to find, understand and analyse research findings; recognising the advantages that research findings have over beliefs or conjecture.
• Incentives – As policy is primarily and inherently politics-based (and not evidence-based), evidence is used where policy-makers have some incentive to do so. Senior leaders within departments and within the Policy Profession must provide the necessary push.
• Systems – policy is a messy business and it rather more ‘happens’ than is ‘made’. Policy is not a factory-product meeting a clear specification and design and emerging from an efficient engineered manufacturing process. Instead, there are myriad systems and processes which contribute to incremental changes in policy and critically, the influence of Ministerial desires, ambitions and statements.

Just this week, the EPPI Centre at University College London published the findings of the first systematic review The Science of Using Science in which they make clear that a number of necessary conditions must be in place for effective uptake of evidence in decision-making – in particular access to evidence, skills in handling evidence and structures and processes that combine supply and demand-side initiatives.

So how might the supply side help the demand side?

Policy-makers and Ministers need help to construct and deliver policies. But decisions will be made, and while many might argue that it would be better if these decisions were made on the basis of, or informed by, at least some evidence, they may not be. But if they are to be, the key is that to be of help, the would-be science adviser must make contact with those in need and the help they offer must match what’s needed! Otherwise it’s like the Boy Scout dragging the old lady across the road against her will because he thinks he’s doing a Good Deed.

When presenting evidence, it’s not enough for advisers just to state their findings and expect policy-makers to believe them because they are an (or the) expert. Advisers must try to build the capacity of those receiving their advice to understand the evidence: where it came from; why it’s reliable and valuable; and crucially, what its limitations are. Advisers should avoid over or under-claiming and they should make sure that they state complexities simply; are sure of uncertainties and clear about ambiguities. Done well, this will improve the chances of advisers being listened to and leave policy-makers and ministers better able to handle evidence; improving the chances that they will demand more and better evidence in future.

So the key is to be helpful and to find as many ways of doing so as possible. The demand for evidence is there and the supply-side can do much to support the demand-side in asking for, understanding and applying evidence to inform policy and decision-making.