How Policy Research Goes Wrong

As someone who has been doing policy research consulting in the field of international humanitarian action since the early 2000s, I have seen how research products can badly miss the mark in two opposite directions: too little evidence, or too much evidence without analysis. [This article is the fir

The Hard and Soft of It

Good policy research borrows from scientific methods without pretending to be something it’s not [This is the second in a series of articles about research consulting in the international policy space. See the previous post here.

Listening, Reading, Counting: The deceptively uncomplicated work of applied research

This is the third in a series of articles about research consulting in the international policy space. See the previous posts here.

Measure and make measurable: Using quantitative data in policy research

My favorite quote about data is usually attributed to the statistician W. Edwards Deming: “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.