Strengthening Evidence-based Policy in the Australian Federation

Roundtable proceedings

The Productivity Commission's 2009 roundtable was organised around the topic Strengthening Evidence-Based Policy in the Australian Federation, and held at Old Parliament House in Canberra on 17-18 August 2009.

Participants included government officials, academics, consultants and representatives of non-government organisations. Keynote addresses were presented by Dr Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution, and Professor Jeffrey Smith of the University of Michigan.

The roundtable discussed the principles of the evidence-based policy movement and reviewed how well Australian use of evidence conformed to best practice. It then considered how to improve the availability of quality evidence, and reviewed possible institutional developments to embed good use of evidence more firmly into policy-making.

The roundtable proceedings are being published to enable a wider audience access to the information and insights that emerged. This volume includes papers by the speakers and a summary of the key points covered in the discussion sessions. A second volume is a background paper prepared by Commission staff and provided to roundtable participants.

The Commission is grateful to the speakers, discussants, participants and others whose contributions made the roundtable such a valuable exercise.

Download the proceedings

Volume 1 by chapters
Volume 2 by chapters

Preliminaries (PDF - 134 Kb)
Cover, Copyright, Foreword and Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction (PDF - 83 Kb) - Gary Banks, Chairman, Productivity Commission

Session 1 Evidence-based policy: Its principles and development

Chapter 2 Evidence-based policy: principles and requirements (PDF - 112 Kb) - Brian Head
Chapter 3 With a scope so wide: using evidence to innovate, improve, manage, budget (PDF - 158 Kb) - Ron Haskins
Chapter 4 Putting the evidence in evidence-based policy (PDF - 175 Kb) - Jeffrey Smith and Arthur Sweetman
General discussion and dinner address (PDF - 60 Kb)

Session 2 How robust is our evidence-based policy making?

Chapter 5 Reflections on four Australian case studies of evidence-based policy (PDF - 279 Kb) - Bruce Chapman
Chapter 6 Evaluating major infrastructure projects: how robust are our processes? (PDF - 212 Kb) - Henry Ergas and Alex Robson
Chapter 7 Evidence-based policy: reflections from New Zealand (PDF - 102 Kb) - Grant Scobie
General discussion (PDF - 41 Kb)

Session 3 From rhetoric to practice how do we improve the availability and quality of evidence?

Chapter 8 Facilitating better linkages between evidence and health policy: the role of the Cochrane Collaboration (PDF - 87 Kb) - Sally Green and Miranda Cumpston
Chapter 9 Learning from the evidence about evidence-based policy (PDF - 148 Kb) - Patricia Rogers
Chapter 10 Evidence-based policy: summon the randomistas? (PDF - 104 Kb) - Andrew Leigh
General discussion (PDF - 43 Kb)

Session 4 Institutionalising an evidence-based approach how can an evaluation culture be embedded into policy-making

Session 5 What have we learned and where to from here?

Chapter 14 Rapporteur’s comments (PDF - 88 Kb) - Jonathan Pincus
General discussion (PDF - 54 Kb)

Appendices

Printed copies

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