LSE Philosophy Assistant Professor Remco Heesen and colleagues have now published their new paper ‘Science–policy research collaborations need philosophers’ in Nature Human Behaviour.

The project on “The Epistemology of Evidence-Based Policy: How Philosophy can facilitate the Science-Policy interface” was co-led by Anne Schwenkenbecher (Murdoch University), Remco Heesen (London School of Economics and Political Science) and Chad Hewitt (Murdoch University, Lincoln University).

The project was focused on understanding how knowledge is acquired and incorporated in evidence-based policy, with specific focus on biosecurity and COVID-19 pandemic policy and decision-making. The key aspect was the contributions that philosophy could provide at the science-policy interface. Conceptual discussions and questions centred around

  • What counts as evidence in evidence-based policy and what should count as evidence?
  • How is evidence identified, evaluated, interpreted and used by policy-makers?
  • What obligations do policy-makers have to seek and obtain evidence and what obligations do researchers have to provide evidence to policy-makers?

Link to the article.