Introduction

Evidence matters for public policymaking. Advocates of greater evidence utilisation commonly point to examples like the first one given above to show how more rigorous or more widespread use of evidence could avoid unnecessary harms and help achieve important social policy goals. Evidence tells us ‘what works’. Yet these individuals also particularly fear and lament what is demonstrated in the other two cases – the potential for cherry-picking, obfuscation or manipulation of pieces of evidence, done to serve political goals. The misuse of evidence matters as well and, for evidence champions, the way to address these concerns has been through the use of evidence-based policymaking (EBP), in which policy decisions are expected to follow from rigorous and accurate uses of scientific evidence.