The future of evidence, expertise and think tanks – a foresight perspective on ‘evidence-based’ decision making
Guest blog by Kristel Van der Elst first published on the Canadian Governments Policy Horizon web site here. Kristel is the Executive Head at Policy Horizons. She has nearly 20 years of experience working on forward-looking strategies and policy. She is the former Head of Strategic Foresight at the World Economic Forum and CEO of The Global Foresight Group. the presentation was made at the ESPAS Annual Conference 2018 A current crisis of credibility is fuelled by a series of events and revelations which brought into light fake news, opaque think tank practices, non-reproducible research, issues around institutions’ conflicts of interest, lack of transparency and intellectual independence as well as the serving of funders’ interests – corporate and foreign government donors, to name a few. If this trend persists credibility will be an intense challenge for experts, think tanks and anyone seeking to persuade with evidence. At the same time we hear the ...