Reducing the gap between studies and policy
BYU professor Darren Hawkins, Ph.D., is leveraging his collaboration with the Ballard Center to bridge the gap between high-quality evidence and effective public policy.
Hawkins is the creator of Impactevidence.org, a platform dedicated to academic studies on global development issues. With the support of the Ballard Center, he employees BYU students to read, summarize, and graph the data.
“There is a large gap between good quality evidence and good public policy,” Hawkins explains. “Many public policies ignore the evidence scholars have gathered. This database is dedicated to bridging that gap.”
Hawkins said there are numerous instances where poor policies were made despite existing scientific evidence.
Ballard Center fellow and BYU professor Darren Hawkins, Ph.D., assembles evidence-based studies for law makers to use when making policy.
“Take smoking cessation policies, for example,” he says. “Science has long shown smoking is terrible for our health but it took decades for the data to inform better policy-making. Think of all the lives we could have saved if policy makers had listened to the science.”
Through Impactevidence.org, Hawkins and his students aim to bring development data closer to policymakers as legislation is written.
The web site includes over 1,500 high-quality academic studies divided categories such has health, education, business, agriculture and environment, population and disasters, infrastructure and conflict.
Hawkins said a lot of good science is behind paywalls—or are only available for purchase. Hawkin’s aim is to move this data to be accessible to every policy maker.
“I’m embarking on a tour of Central America this summer to quickly introduce this database to those shaping their country’s development policies,” Hawkins shares. “My goal is to for these people to use the data as soon as possible.”