FUEL WATCH: EVIDENCE-BASED-POLICY OR POLICY-BASED-EVIDENCE?

Evidence based policy or policy based evidence?

Relationship between evidence and policy: a case of evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence?

The use (or non-use) of evidence in health policy is an issue of growing interest and concern among both academic researchers and policy makers. Most public health research is government funded, yet the extent to which its findings are used to shape and inform policy is variable in the extreme. Part of the problem lies in the nature of the evidence itself and the extent to which it addresses th...

Evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence gathering? Biofuels, the EU and the 10% target

The 2009 Renewable Energy Directive mandates European Union member-states’ road transport fuel to comprise a minimum of 10% renewable content by 2020. This target is expected to be met predominantly from biofuels. However, scientific evidence is increasingly questioning the ability of biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when factors such as indirect land-use change are taken into consid...

From Evidence - Based Policy - Making to Policy

The paper aims at addressing the problem of what makes specific aiding to decide within public policy making problem situations. Under such a perspective it analyses some basic concepts such as “public policy”, “deliberation”, “legitimation”, “accountability” and shows the necessity to expand the concept of rationality which is expected to be behind the acceptability of a public policy. We then...

Evidence-Based Policy on Deworming

We read with interest ‘‘Does Deworming Improve Growth and School Performance in Children?’’ (published in this issue [1]), a summary of the 2007 Cochrane systematic review by David Taylor-Robinson and colleagues. Their previous systematic review [2], published in the BMJ, has been subject to substantial criticism by various authors and institutions [3–7]. Taylor-Robinson and colleagues have now...