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Ministers are always calling for more evidence‐based interventions. Do they apply the same criterion to their own work of making policy? Perhaps surprisingly, policy making is not an evidence‐free zone. However, it is important to understand the ways in which policy makers in different situations will use information differently, count different kinds of information as evidence, and so exercise different styles of judgment.

Innovation and technology development policy-making naturally encounters numerous uncertainties and complexities, especially in developing countries, for the sake of the prevailing prospect of decision makers focusing on hard evidences, and neglecting key and effective social ones; in this research, a context-based method by means of Q-methodology was designed to facilitate policy-making for complex systems by bridging between policy and practices (latent in viewpoints) through providing context-based evidences.

Due to the nature of knowledge-based systems, the performance of Innovation and Technology Development (ITD) systems is highly dependent on the standpoints of key players/stakeholders of the system. In consideration of Iran’s economy characteristics, Upstream Oil and Gas (UOG) Industry, which is one of the complex Large Technical Systems (LTS), was selected as a case study. Regarding the features of LTSs, the designed model was completed by adding hierarchical clustering method, as well as using the framework of innovation and technology learning transition model to analyze the results.

The results showed the capability of the model in providing credible evidences to inform policy-making processes.

This study is one of the first real experiences which used Q-method for providing evidence-based policy-making model in a complex Large Technical System, namely, Upstream Oil and Gas (UOG) Industry.

This article critically analyses the concept of evidence in evidence‐based policy, arguing that there is a key problem: there is no existing practicable theory of evidence, one which is philosophically‐grounded and yet applicable for evidence‐based policy. The article critically considers both philosophical accounts of evidence and practical treatments of evidence in evidence‐based policy. It argues that both fail in different ways to provide a theory of evidence that is adequate for evidence‐based policy. The article contributes to the debate about how evidence can and should be used to reduce contingency in science and in policy based on science.

The rise of evidence‐based medicine and more recently evidence‐based policy reflect the increasing importance of evidence as a basis for the organisation and delivery of health care. Evidence‐based practice is central to the “modernisation” of health care in current UK policy. The latest manifestation of this process is the emergence of evidence‐based management in health care. This paper examines the development of evidence‐based approaches in health care and questions the appropriateness of such an approach to management. The problems inherent in applying the principles of EBP to management are explored and alternative apporoach based on the notion of craft is suggesteed as more practical and realistic.

The “two communities” metaphor for the relationship between policy and academia is inconsistent with empirical evidence that shows that a sizeable minority of public servants use academic research in their policy-related work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the two communities metaphor by comparing the personal and professional characteristics of Australian public servants who claim to use research in their policy work with the characteristics of those who claim not to use research.

Using data from a survey of 2,084 public servants from the state and federal levels in Australia carried out from 2011 to 2013, tests of statistical significance were conducted for the relationship between some personal and professional characteristics (e.g. gender, age, work experience) and the claim that research is used in policy-related work.

The “two communities” metaphor is not an accurate description of the relationship between policy and academia. In reality, public servants who claim to use academic research in their policy work are more likely to have much in common with academics, including having postgraduate degrees and work experience in the university sector.

Rather than existing as isolated solitudes, the findings in this paper suggest that the policy and academic communities possess links that can encourage the use of research in policy making.

The findings presented in this paper are especially important for the evidence-based policy movement, which emphasises the value of the use of research evidence in the creation of public policy.

The World Health Organization has pointed out that the majority of developing countries currently rely on imported drugs, in spite of the fact that there is potential for them to produce their own drugs. The purpose of this paper is to present a framework as an innovation policy model that can strategically predict the outcome of drug development investment in developing countries.

In order to explore a model relevant to the policy-making process, the literature was systematically reviewed with a focus on the impact of policy changes on drug development in developing countries.

An innovation policy model consists of the relational influences of contextual variables of pharma capabilities, innovation incentives and political factors affecting drug development in developing countries, derived from a dissenting policy-making perspective. This was built to test two hypotheses of a positive relationship between the above variables; and a perspectives gap between the pharmaceutical companies and the policymakers. These hypotheses address issues related to the lack of drug development in developing countries.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for the evaluation and provides examples of its use, but it is currently at a relatively early stage of research. Further work is currently underway and will later be presented to the same journal.

Domestic drug development in developing countries needs to be feasible in order to ensure drug security. This predictive policy model provides a comprehensive approach to health policy reforms to examine innovation strategies.

This model includes measures to explore whether pharma capabilities, innovation incentives and/or political factors have an effect on domestic drug development in developing countries. It bridges the policy implementation’s operational process between pharmaceutical companies and policymakers.

This paper aims to present pertinent research challenges in the field of (big) data-informed policy-making based on the research, undertaken within the course of the European Union-funded project Big Policy Canvas. Technological advancements, especially in the past decade, have revolutionised the way that both every day and complex activities are conducted. It is, thus, expected that a particularly important actor such as the public sector, should constitute a successful disruption paradigm through the adoption of novel approaches and state-of-the-art information and communication technologies.

The research challenges stem from a need, trend and asset assessment based on qualitative and quantitative research, as well as from the identification of gaps and external framework factors that hinder the rapid and effective uptake of data-driven policy-making approaches.

The current paper presents a set of research challenges categorised in six main clusters, namely, public governance framework, privacy, transparency, trust, data acquisition, cleaning and representativeness, data clustering, integration and fusion, modelling and analysis with big data and data visualisation.

The paper provides a holistic overview of the interdisciplinary research challenges in the field of data-informed policy-making at a glance and shall serve as a foundation for the discussion of future research directions in a broader scientific community. It, furthermore, underlines the necessity to overcome isolated scientific views and treatments because of a high complex multi-layered environment.

The pharmaceutical industry in Indonesia appears hesitant to make the transition from inventor to innovator and instead continues with the process of formulation and packaging. Evidence-based policy has been advocated for Indonesia and, in general, this is more likely to hold. This study aims to establish a model for a policy-making process that is strategically able to predict strategies that would encourage drug development in Indonesia.

A quantitative approach with the survey method was designed to obtain appropriate data from a population of pharmaceutical industries in Indonesia and relevant government institutions to assess the relationship of various factors capable of triggering domestic drug development, including pharma capability, political feasibility and innovation incentives. The construct was validated using a set of techniques pertaining to the calculation of structural equation modeling.

The model demonstrates how it matters when applied to the policy-making process. It proves that pharma capability, political feasibility, and innovation incentives correlated to pharma capability are major catalysts in the promotion of drug development. These are largely explained by market opportunity, pull factors, government power, and position. Although all of the elements were moderately to strongly related to the promotion of drug development, this study has revealed the predictive impact on drug development in Indonesia to be only 46%.

This study adds values to policy-makers as it attempts to predict strategies that would encourage a successful policy when being implemented. Encompassing both pharma industries and government institutions, this study captures a real situation and provides an empirical contribution to the concept of the integrated research of drug development in developing countries.

Although high-quality comparative data from international assessments are now more widely available, to what extent is that data being used to trigger, inform, and direct educational change in non-Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries? The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to guide a case analysis of Trinidad and Tobago's system response to international assessment data.

This is a single-nation explanatory case study using data from policy documents and elite interviews. Findings are generated through inductive thematic analysis.

The four emerging themes were: first, weaknesses in the national evaluation system; second, policy-making practices not attuned to data; third, lack of collaboration and stakeholder involvement; and fourth, challenges in accessing and using data. Findings suggested that data rarely acted alone to trigger system change. Critical to initiating and sustaining effective data use for system reform were policy-making contexts and mental maps of system leaders, which in this context acted as barriers. Respondents believed that greater strategic leadership from politicians and technocrats could ensure data-informed systemic change.

The study focuses upon data use and data-driven decision making for whole system reform within a single country context. However, it advances theory that might be applied to other non-OECD cases.

The findings contribute to the refinement of a conceptual model explaining data-driven system reform applicable to non-OECD contexts. The role of system leaders when using international assessment data is clarified.