Policy analytical capacity and evidence‐based policy‐making: Lessons from Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract: Evidence‐based policy‐making represents a contemporary effort to reform or re‐structure policy processes in order to prioritize evidentiary or data‐based decision‐making. Like earlier efforts in the “policy analysis movement,” its aim is to avoid or minimize policy failures caused by a mismatch between government expectations and actual, on‐the‐ground conditions through the provision of greater amounts of policy‐relevant information. A significant factor affecting the ability of policy‐makers to engage in evidence‐based policy‐making pertains to both governmental and non‐governmental “policy analytical capacity.” That is, governments require a reasonably high level of policy analytical capacity to perform the tasks associated with managing the policy process in order to implement evidence‐based policy‐making and avoid several of the most common sources of policy failures. Recent studies, however, suggest that, even in advanced countries such as Canada, the level of policy analytical capacity found in many governments and non‐governmental actors is low, potentially contributing to both a failure of evidence‐based policy‐making as well as effectively dealing with many complex contemporary policy challenges. Sommaire: L'élaboration de politiques axée sur des éléments probants représente un effort contemporain de réforme ou de structuration des processus de politiques dans le but de donner la prioritéà la prise de décisions s'appuyant sur les preuves ou fondée sur les données. Comme pour les efforts antérieurs du « mouvement d'analyse de politiques », le but est d'éviter ou de minimiser les échecs de politiques causés par un décalage entre les attentes du gouvernement et les conditions réelles sur le terrain, grâce à la disposition de plus amples informations pertinentes aux politiques. Un facteur important touchant à l'aptitude des élaborateurs de politiques à s'engager dans une élaboration de politiques axée sur les éléments probants est liéà la « capacité d'analyse de politiques » aussi bien gouvernementale que non gouvernementale. C'est‐à‐dire que les gouvernements exigent un niveau raisonnablement élevé de capacité d'analyse de politiques en vue d'exécuter les tâches associées à la gestion du processus politique pour mettre en œuvre l'élaboration de politiques axée sur les éléments probants et éviter ainsi plusieurs sources courantes d'échecs de politiques. Néanmoins, des études récentes laissent entendre que, même dans les pays développés comme le Canada, le niveau de capacité d'analyse de politiques observé dans de nombreux gouvernements et chez un grand nombre d'acteurs non gouvernementaux est faible ; cela pourrait éventuellement contribuer à la fois à un échec de l'élaboration de politiques axées sur les éléments probants ainsi qu'à l'échec de régler efficacement de nombreux problèmes contemporains complexes en matière de politiques.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.022 | 0.053 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.015 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".