Sustaining Long Term Evidence Use - The Next Chapter

In today's complex world, the need for evidence is everywhere. Evidence building and evidence-informed decision-making has become a crucial component of effective policy implementation at all levels of government and society. But how do we use evidence effectively and efficiently? This is where the challenge now lies; in continuing to build the understanding and resources needed to make evidence even more impactful. 

The Center for Evidence Capacity is at the forefront of focusing on the resources, people, processes, and funding needed to ensure that data and evidence are effectively used during policy implementation and decision-making activities. The Center for Evidence Capacity will focus on identifying and supporting the questions about how and why policies and practices are implemented, including through support of major activities like the recent advent of learning agenda implementation and building multi-year strategies, open data and related engagement plans, and resources for data and artificial intelligence literacy, evaluation policies and practices, and evidence transparency.

The Data Foundation’s Center for Evidence Capacity is a natural extension of work from recent years across a broad community. The Data Foundation is committed to ensuring the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, or Evidence Act, is successfully implemented and evidence-informed and data-driven decision-making becomes more prevalent throughout government and society. The Center for Evidence Capacity is the next chapter of this work. 

Encouraging Successful Learning Agendas to Bridge Knowledge Needs and Uses

The Center for Evidence Capacity’s work will focus on several key areas. One of these is the development of multi-year learning agendas, or evidence-building plans, which can help organizations identify and prioritize the data and evidence needed and desired to make informed decisions over time. At the federal level, these learning agendas exist as a requirement established in the Evidence Act. By creating a roadmap for continuous learning and improvement, learning agendas ensure that organizations remain adaptable and responsive to changing needs and circumstances. Now, the hard work of implementing and evaluating the goals and objectives outlined in them is only beginning.  

Facilitating Innovative Approaches for Participation and Engagement with Data and Evidence

Effective data-driven policies require buy-in and participation from a wide range of diverse stakeholders, including policymakers, program managers, community members, industry, academia, peer or partner organizations, and affected beneficiaries or program users. The Data Foundation has historically embodied this need for engagement and participation through a core value we call radical collaboration, but new ideas and strategies are needed to enable success for meaningful and effective engagement in the years ahead on all aspects of data planning, management, and use. Improved engagement strategies, in particular, can be a focus for learning agendas, open data plans, and other efforts related to data collection and privacy feedback processes. 

Bolstering Evaluation Policy and Coordination for Evidence Capacity-Building

The Data Foundation has long held partnerships with professional organizations and experts on the topics of evidence capacity-building and evaluation policy, including the American Evaluation Association.  Ensuring that evaluation principles and standards are in place, evaluation policies are active, and annual evaluation plans are transparently available with relevant resources is a core strategy for maintaining public sector capacity for measuring impacts and determining what works best for different groups, when, where, and why.  When holistic frameworks for using evidence with feedback loops for continuous learning are in place, organizations are better positioned to ensure that their programs and activities are delivering the intended results and simultaneously make course corrections as needed. This aspect of the Center for Evidence Capacity’s efforts aims to help public sector organizations develop and implement effective evaluation policies and capacity to enable meaningful use.

Fostering Strategies for Data and AI Literacy

The workforce to implement capacity-building activities relies heavily on data literacy programs. As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly moves to the center of methodological and social discourse, more attention is needed to emphasize strategic literacy efforts as part of broader capacity building. AI is poised to change how we think about, rely on, and use data systems, analysis methods, and automation for predictive analytics. Data literacy that is inclusive of AI literacy is essential for building a culture of evidence-informed decision-making in our society, especially in federal agencies.  By building data literacy at all levels, including through meaningful literacy programs, organizations can encourage those involved in the policymaking or decision-making processes to contribute toward and benefit from data-driven insights.

Making Evidence Accessible, Transparent, and Usable

Far too often the evidence that is available may not be accessible or understandable for machine-readable searching and analysis. In rapidly building new capacity — and strengthening existing capacity — prioritizing efforts to facilitate evidence transparency is also a means of restoring or building trust and creating accountability mechanisms.  By making data, methods, and results openly available and accessible to the public, organizations can demonstrate a commitment to transparency — another core value of the Data Foundation — and invite feedback from the stakeholder community.  

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The launch of the Data Foundation’s Center for Evidence Capacity occurs at a critical juncture for the community. Five years ago, the enactment of the Evidence Act provided new direction and encouragement to build, foster, and sustain cultures for evidence capacity that lead to data and evidence use in decision-making. The Data Foundation is committed to a strategic focus on the resources, people, processes, and expanding capacity that will be critical for building sustainable data-driven policies and decisions in the years ahead. 

SARA STEFANIK is the Director of the Data Foundation’s Center for Evidence Capacity. The Data Foundation launched the Center for Evidence Capacity in 2024.