Key words: Comparative policy analysis, Policy evaluation, Evidence based policy, Policy advice, Policy advisers, Policy work, Policy design, Think tanks, Evaluation methods, Qualitative Comparative methods

Policy evaluations evaluated. When do they prompt an overhaul of policies? (NWO Veni 2022-2026)

Policy evaluations have a crucial role for policy makers to know whether policies 'work'. Nevertheless, concerns about the limited relevance of evaluation research have grown substantially. Even in settings with a high level of evaluation institutionalisation, evaluations are often not used; and when they are, they risk resulting merely in quick fixes of policies, rather than enabling fundamental reassessments and changes in those policies.

The project ‘Policy evaluations evaluated. When do they prompt an overhaul of policies?, which is funded by an NWO Veni grant (2022-2026) aims to systematically measure, explain and understand the influence of policy evaluations in settings with different levels and modalities of evaluation institutionalisation. Data is collected in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium.

The project is part of ‘The Power of Evidence’ research programme, which I co-direct with Dr. Johan Christensen.

The Uncertainty Communication Project (2021-2024)

How many vaccines will be available in the coming month? To what extent will traffic rise after corona? What will be the impact of sea level rising due to climate change? These are questions policy makers have to deal with: they have to make decisions, even though the information that they base their decision on remains uncertain. These policy makers receive reports with information, such as predictive models or scientific evidence. Even though there will always remain a level of uncertainty regarding the information they have to work with, there comes a point at which a decision has to be made. This, in turn, should motivate scientists and experts to think of the best ways of presenting evidence, including their estimates of the inherent uncertainty.

With this research-project, we investigate how policy makers deal with uncertainty information. The main research question of this project is as follows: “How does the form in which uncertainty is communicated have an impact on the use of evidence by policy makers, and is this moderated by the magnitude of uncertainty?”. From 2020 until 2024, the team will study this research question with a multidisciplinary approach, with scholars in epistemology, public management, and evidence-informed policy making. For this, we intend to use cutting-edge research methods, such as eye-tracking and computer simulations of opinion dynamics.

This project is funded by KU Leuven. More information can be found on the project website.

Evaluation Pilot ‘Accessibility of evaluative information’— Section 3.1 of the Dutch Government Accounts Act

[Evaluatie gebruik bijlage CW3.1 door Tweede Kamer]

We analyze whether and on which conditions the ‘accessibility’ of evaluative information matters in incentivizing MPs to use evaluative knowledge in their daily parliamentary work. The project evaluates a pilot (2020-2021) launched by the Dutch Ministry of Finance, which introduced a new format for ministries to provide evaluative information as required by the Government Accounts Act 2016. The overall premise underlying the pilot is precisely that accessible evaluative information facilitates more elaborate use of it. We investigated whether and on which conditions this assumption indeed holds true. The report is available here. See also here for a short contribution about the report.

Anno 2023, I am adviser to the mid-term evaluation of ‘Beleidskeuzes uitgelegd’, which is a follow-up of the original pilot ‘accessibility of evaluative information’'.

Commissioner: Dutch Ministry of Finance.

Project consortium: Leiden University Institute of Public Administration; KWINK; Netherlands School of Public Administration (NSOB).

Designing for policy effectiveness in the case of the Sustainable Development Goals

With support of a LUF/ Gratama grant (2020), we investigate how countries vary in designing their SDG frameworks of national planning and reporting, and how they evaluate the effectiveness of SDG related policy measures. This pilot project is conducted in collaboration with Fabrizio de Francesco (University of Strathclyde).

  • 2016-2020: COST Action “Professionalization and Social Impact of European Political Science”. The COST Action ProSEPS (2016-2020) focuses on the social visibility and advisory roles of political scientists in 36 countries, their disciplinary identity, and their degree of internationalization. In Working Group 4, we studied the Advisory role of Political scientists in Europe. This OA Book, edited by Marleen Brans and Arco Timmermans, provides some key findings.

  • 2017-2020: Impact Evaluation ESF Interventions: ‘Trainings in Firms’. Commissioner: Flemish Department Work and Social Economics. Theory-based impact evaluation, in which we rely on a combination of Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Process Tracing. Other team members: Bart Cambré (Antwerp Management School), Benoît Rihoux (UCLouvain), and Priscilla Alamos Concha (UCLouvain/Antwerp Management School).

  • 2016-2020: H2020 Project ITS4Land ‘Geospatial Technology Innovations for Land Security in East Africa’. Project partners: University of Twente. Other partners are Universität Münster (Germany), KU Leuven (Belgium), Hanse Luftbild AG (Germany), Institut d'Enseignement Superier de Ruhengeri (Rwanda), Bahir Dar University (Ethiopia), Technical University of Kenya (Kenya), Esri Rwanda (Rwanda).

Jury: Marleen Brans (supervisor, KUL); Annie Hondeghem (KUL); Christopher Pollitt (KUL); Frédéric Varone (Université de Genève), and Benoît Rihoux (UCLouvain).

The PhD was shortlisted for the Jaarprijs Politicologie 2014, the annual prize for the best PhD dissertation, defended in the Netherlands or Flanders; a joint initiative of the Dutch and Flemish Political Science Associations NKWP and VPW.

  • January 2007- March 2008: Euro-Med Public Administration Researchers Network (EUMEPAR-Network), “Tendencies and determining factors of autonomisation in the MENA area. Experiences in Algeria, Lebanon and Tunisia in the water management and telecommunication sector”. Funded by the Anna Lindh EuroMediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures.