Academics must rebut policy-based ‘evidence’

Very good piece. We also have to do something to guard against the buzzwords and fads that academics seem to flock around.

It is naive to believe that policy makers and their advisors care about evidence. Generally, policy work ends up either as (a) the cherry picking of studies and/or the hiring of researchers with the specific orientation and bias that the policy maker/department/advisors want to use to either support their policy or counter the policy alternatives and (b) the utilisation of 'think tanks' or policy wonk professors that have a vested interest in keeping the policy work pump going on and on. Also, government's do not get their information from academics doing academic work but from academics and quasi academics writing for think tanks and newspapers/magazines/blogs. You can be the definitive expert in an area and completely unknown by those in policy relative to a marginal scholar with good access to the lunches and newspapers. In this sense, academics end up being a prop for those wanting to push a policy rather than being a source of knowledge or inspiration to define a policy (or even worse, argue that a policy is a total waste of time).