I was recently in Florence to meet the team at the UNICEF’s Office of Research-Innocenti and present & discuss some of the experiences of the Knowledge Sector Initiative in Indonesia. I was part of the implementing team during phase 1 from 2013-2017 leading the research and learning work of the programme. The Knowledge Sector Initiative is […]
Eighteen years have passed since the big demonstrations that took place in the streets of Belgrade and which ultimately led to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević on 5th October 2000. Today Serbia is on a new journey which is not without challenges. Ten years ago, the government applied for membership to the EU and in
The Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade has a long history. It was established in 1838 and today it is located in a modern building in downtown Belgrade. I went there to meet Dragan Stanojević, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology. I wanted to meet him because he led the initiative that resulted
The search for ways to design policies that help to solve societal problems is continuously evolving. The traditional evidence-based approach to policy making involves generating research results and using these to inform policy decisions. This blog post is based on an interview with Mikko Annala, Head of Governance Innovation at Demos Helsinki. It was originally posted on
A conversation about policy experiments Read More »
Is policymaking becoming too complex? What does this mean for evidence-informed policy making?
#Brexit, the populist surge and the crisis of complexity Read More »
After more than a decade in Asia working to build governments’ use of evidence, I recently moved back to Finland. Here I’ve found commitment to evidence and innovation like nowhere else. Kokeileva Suomi or Experimental Finland is a great example of the nation’s ‘readiness to innovate’. Set up by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä in 2015, it tests policies
Making research evidence count: insights from Finland’s Policy Analysis Unit Read More »
There is an interesting exchange mid-way through David Letterman’s interview to President Barack Obama on Netflix. Letterman asks President Obama about his reflection on policymaking and the role and power that the president actually has. Obama answer is quite illuminating in terms of the nature of policy change. Yes, he says, a lot of his time
Policy content change is one of the types of policy change, but not the only one Read More »
Being back in Finland and having to fix things in the house has given me an opportunity to listen again to the always very interesting LSE Public Lecture podcasts. The effects and implications of Brexit and the election of President Trump dominate the discussion at the moment but they are not the only themes. Here
LSE podcasts I liked Read More »