A major new report has revealed paltry investment by governments on public policy evidence. In the UK, Canada, Australia and the United States, research and development (R&D) spending is less than 0.1% of the total expenditure in critical areas like education, social protection and public order.
The report shows how governments around the world spend trillions of dollars every year delivering public services – often with very little evidence of what works.
It reveals for the first time the shortfall between current spending on evidence and R&D and what it would take the four nations to reach comparable R&D spending to health and defence. Closing the gap would cost around $100 billion per annum.
While evidence production in health and defense is better funded, the report finds much of what passes for ‘evidence-based’ public policy is anything but. Areas like social protection and housing – expensive for governments and of critical concern for taxpayers and citizens – suffer from a rudimentary evidence base and a lack of investment in high-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
The study is led by Professor David Halpern, former President of BIT (the Behavioural Insights Team) and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Dr David Halpern said:
“Evidence is one of the most misused words in public policy. There is far too little of it and many eye-wateringly expensive policy areas are poorly evidenced. This means we are often flying blind with taxpayers’ money. One action we can immediately take is to assemble the precious evidence that does exist across countries. We can do this by jointly funding ‘living evidence reviews’, and break from the current madness of countries and governments commissioning separate, poor-quality reviews. We need to learn ‘What Works’ from each other. Leveraging this evidence can improve the effectiveness, impact, and value for money of public services and policy for everyone.”
Professor Stian Westlake, Executive Chair of the ESRC, said:
“ESRC is delighted to have supported this crucial report. It reveals a staggering underinvestment in evidence for public policy on the part of governments around the world. Addressing this $100 billion evidence gap is essential if we want policies that deliver for citizens and for society. Connecting research to real-world societal and economic challenges has been at of the heart of ESRC’s mission since our foundation, and we take these findings seriously. We’re already leveraging them to shape new initiatives, including a major upcoming investment in AI-driven evidence synthesis. This will aim to deliver a step change in how evidence is produced and used in tackling economic and societal challenges, accelerating progress towards shared international goals and ultimately improving outcomes for people around the world.”
The report makes a series of recommendations to improve the supply and quality of evidence including:
- Establish a Shared Evaluation Fund across partner countries to ensure evaluation of promising interventions ($10-50 million);
- Promote standardised reporting and publication protocols to facilitate inter-governmental knowledge-sharing in policy research and evaluation ($0.5-1 million);
- Conduct evidence gap maps across priority policy areas ($10-30 million);
- Prioritise the synthesis of this evidence into high-quality, comprehensive reviews, or meta-Living Evidence Reviews (meta-LERs) ($50-100 million);
- Strengthen international public service professional networks to accelerate the transfer and adoption of best practices across countries ($5-20 million).
Ends
Notes to editors
For more information on the analysis or to speak to one of the experts involved, please contact Mark Byrne, BIT Press Office, on 07745 234 909 or mark.byrne@nesta.org.uk
Steering group and contributors
This report was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and was commissioned following discussions between the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Canada in July 2023. The steering group comprised:
- David Gruen – Chief Statistician, Australian Bureau of Statistics
- Loren DeJonge Schulman – Program Associate Director, Office of Management and Budget
- Conrad Smewing – Director General, Public Spending, His Majesty’s Treasury
- Rodney Ghali – Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet of the Impact and Innovation Unit at the Canadian Privy Council Office
- Stian Westlake – Executive Chair, Economic and Social Research Council The working group comprised:
- Diana Epstein – U.S. Office of Management and Budget
- Miriam Light & Fay Sadro – UK Evaluation Task Force
- Eleanor Williams – Australian Centre for Evaluation
- Chad Hartnell & Justin Savoie – Impact Canada
- Jen Gold & James Canton – Economic and Social Research Council
About the Behavioural Insights Team
BIT is a global research and innovation consultancy which combines a deep understanding of human behaviour with evidence-led problem solving to improve people’s lives. We work with all levels of government, nonprofits and the private sector, applying behaviour science expertise with robust evaluation and data to help clients achieve their goals.
