Report summary: Global commission on evidence to address societal challenges

This report was authored by the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges. The Evidence Commission is funded by partners in three countries and its secretariat is hosted at the McMaster Health Forum at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

**Report name **

Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges

Who wrote this report?

The Evidence Commission grew out of a global network of 55 partners—the COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-making (COVID-END) came together to provide a more coordinated evidence response to COVID-19 and first identified the need for the commission. The Evidence Commission brought together 25 commissioners including government policymakers, organisational leaders, professionals and citizens who address a range of societal challenges in their respective roles.

COVID-19 has created a once-in-a-generation focus on evidence among governments, businesses and nongovernmental organisations, many types of professionals, and citizens. Other societal challenges–from educational achievement to health-system performance to climate change–need a similarly renewed focus on best evidence. Now is the time to systematise the aspects of using evidence that are going well and address the many shortfalls, and to balance the use of evidence with judgement, humility and empathy. The Evidence Commission’s independent panel of commissioners has produced this report with recommendations for ways to better meet the evidence needs of decision-makers in routine times and in future global crises

Best quote

This is an incredible opportunity to dramatically up our game in supporting political leaders to use evidence to address societal challenges at a global, national and local level.

John Lavis, co-lead of the Evidence Commission

**Key takeaways: **

• Wake-up call — Decision-makers, evidence intermediaries and impact-oriented evidence producers should recognise the scale and nature of the problem. The report’s 24 recommendations call for decisive action by multiple stakeholders to ensure evidence is consistently used to address societal challenges.
• National (and sub-national) evidence-support systems — Every national (and sub-national) government should review their existing evidence-support system (and broader evidence infrastructure), fill the gaps both internally and through partnerships, and report publicly on their progress.
• Evidence in everyday life — Citizens should consider making decisions about their and their families’ well-being based on best evidence; spending their money on products and services that are backed by best evidence; volunteering their time and donating money to initiatives that use evidence to make decisions about what they do and how they do it; and supporting politicians who commit to using best evidence to address societal challenges and who commit (along with others) to supporting the use of evidence in everyday life.

What’s in this report?

The Evidence Commission report makes the case that decision-makers responding to present-day societal challenges and tomorrow’s crises have an unprecedented opportunity to build on what has worked in using evidence before and during the pandemic. The report’s 24 recommendations call for decisive action by multiple stakeholders to ensure evidence is consistently used to address societal challenges.

The Evidence Commission report includes 52 sections that can be separately downloaded from the Evidence Commission website and have been designed to be easily used in presentations, reports, and other formats. The Evidence Commission encourages you to “share freely, give credit, adapt with permission.”

Why should you read this report?

“The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically reinforced the need for high-quality evidence to inform policy and practice, and has also highlighted the negative consequences of social media and associated misinformation. In this context, the work of the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges is hugely important, and should be seen as essential reading for all policymakers around the world,” said commissioner Gillian Leng (evidence intermediary and producer).

Who is this report for?

The focus of the Evidence Commission report is on supporting four types of decision-makers–government policymakers, organisational leaders, professionals and citizens–to better use evidence, research evidence specifically, alongside other factors in addressing societal challenges.

The commissioners and secretariat hope that this report is the start of a serious set of conversations about what is going well and where we can do better

🔗 Read the full report here. 🔗

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