This report provides a brief overview of the work we undertook in 2019, with embedded hyperlinks to our full reports. You can download the report below.
2019 was marked by political uncertainty and polarised policy debates. This made it important that policy makers and public services could access reliable independent evidence about what works.
For the last two years, we have worked closely with academic experts, public services, and Welsh Government ministers to bridge the gap which often exists between policy and research. We’ve published more than 40 reports and convened numerous events which have brought together over 100 researchers from across the UK, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden with policy makers and practitioners to discuss the big policy challenges facing Wales.
We have also continued to play an important role as part of the UK-wide What Works network, collaborating with other What Work Centres to ensure that policy makers in Wales have access to the evidence that they generate on health improvement, educational attainment, economic growth, social care, early intervention, ageing better, homelessness, wellbeing, and reducing crime.
There has been growing interest in the demand-led approach to mobilising evidence that we have developed, and we were delighted to be selected as one of the two finalists for the prestigious Economic and Social Research Council Impact on Public Policy Prize. We have also drawn on our experience of working with policy makers to contribute new insights to the academic literature on evidence use.