The past two decades have seen a proliferation of activity supporting evidence-informed policymaking (EIPM) in low- and middle-income countries. Investments in research infrastructure, technical capacity, and relationships between researchers and policymakers have developed markedly, alongside a growing discourse emphasising the importance of EIPM for efficient and transparent governance.

However, despite the increased prominence of EIPM, there remains limited actionable knowledge about how to enhance evidence use in practice. Conceptualising and measuring the influence of evidence on policy outcomes is a particular challenge, given the complexity of policy processes, the long time horizons often involved, and the difficulty of attributing policy developments to evidence use amid other influencing factors. This is compounded by the fragmented nature of existing research on EIPM, where disciplinary siloes and different terminologies across fields obscure common lessons.

The FCDO Research Commissioning Centre (RCC) has recently launched a research programme on understanding evidence use in policymaking in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with a particular focus on national economic growth. As a first step, a collaborative team from the RCC consortium developed a conceptual framework to visualise the various actors and factors that influence whether and how research evidence is used for policy decision-making. This is mapped against an inventory of tools and indicators to measure evidence use in policymaking, and the factors that facilitate or inhibit it.

Our aim is to provide policymakers, researchers and practitioners with user-friendly resources to understand and measure the processes underpinning EIPM—and the political, institutional and systemic context in which it occurs—to support future research and practice.

A framework that maps the components of EIPM

Starting from literature identified for a systematic review on what works to enhance evidence use in policy decision-making, our framework identifies the complex and interconnected ways in which evidence may inform policymaking. As there can be no ‘one-size-fits-all’ representation of EIPM, our framework is intended to provide an overarching structure that can be adapted for different contexts, political systems and policy types.  It comprises the following components:

• At its core, a nested actor ecosystem represented by evidence producers (e.g., researchers), intermediaries (e.g., think tanks or policy labs), and users (e.g., elected officials or civil servants) playing overlapping roles in determining the evidence that is produced and accessed. Individuals operate within institutions that are part of broader political and social systems.
• Four interconnected pathways of change flowing through multiple actors and levels (individual, institution and system), whereby evidence contributes to policy transformation through strengthening capabilities to interpret and apply evidence, building conducive relationships and networks, establishing structures and processes for evidence use, and creating a supportive evidence culture.
• Moderating or contextual forces, including political dynamics, economic constraints, and power relations, which actively shape both how evidence is generated and applied.
• EIPM outcomes, conceptualised across four domains: conceptual outcomes, when evidence reshapes how policymakers understand issues; attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, when evidence drives shifts in willingness and propensity to engage with evidence; procedural outcomes, when evidence changes the process of how decisions are made; and content outcomes, when evidence informs the substance of new or existing policies.

This framework recognises that the availability of evidence alone is necessary but insufficient for achieving policy impact. Political will, implementation capacity, and contextual factors all play crucial roles in the EIPM process. By providing a structured way to understand these complex interactions, we’re moving beyond linear models toward a nuanced understanding of how evidence informs policymaking.

Measuring evidence use in policymaking

At the same time, we compiled an inventory of tools and indicators to measure evidence use in policymaking, and the factors that facilitate or inhibit it. Improving evidence use in policymaking requires understanding whether and how policymakers use evidence, and whether efforts to influence evidence use have observable effects on policy outcomes. We systematically searched over 900 studies from the academic and grey literature to identify measures of different aspects of evidence use across country contexts and policy areas. We focused specifically on tools designed to measure evidence use by policymakers, as distinct from frontline practitioners such as healthcare workers or educators.

The result is 124 unique measures, which we also appraised for evidence of validity and reliability. In the online inventory, users can filter tools by characteristics including the sector or country in which they have been used, as well as find a bibliography of the original source material for more information.

What do these resources show?

The conceptual framework and measures inventory combine in an interactive resource that helps identify relevant constructs for understanding evidence use in policymaking and how they can be measured. Key insights include:

• Mapping of constructs from the measures inventory onto the conceptual framework revealed a fairly comprehensive alignment: There are lots of existing tools and measures that capture different aspects of EIPM—many, but not all, of which have been robustly designed and validated—but some components have much greater coverage than others.
• In particular, we find a large imbalance in the prevalence of measures of attitudes and behaviours around evidence use relative to other types of EIPM outcome. There is a huge opportunity to further conceptualise what ‘successful’ EIPM looks like and develop measures that move beyond policymakers’ self-reports, which often don’t translate into actual behaviour or account for the variety of influences evidence can have on policymaking.
• Most of the measures in the inventory were generated through surveys or interviews, with a smaller number coming from other methods including observation or document analysis. We’re starting to see some new approaches emerging, for example using large language models to code the research language in policy documents, speeches, and media reports, so there are exciting prospects for methodological innovation in measuring EIPM outcomes. Future work should also examine the role of geographic and sectoral context in the measurement of EIPM, and the extent to which tools developed in one area or discipline are applicable in others.

Who are these resources for?

Researchers and evaluators gain access to an inventory of valid and reliable tools and a framework for thinking about EIPM instead of creating new measures from scratch.

Evidence users and intermediaries can use the resources to identify patterns of strengths and weaknesses in institutional evidence use and areas for targeted support.

Research funders can ensure value for money of research investments by grounding them in approaches most likely to achieve policy impact, while having concrete ways to track EIPM outcomes.

For those committed to EIPM, these resources offer practical tools to map the pathways through which evidence can influence policy processes and measure progress across multiple dimensions. The new research commissioned through the RCC – which aims to understand cases of evidence use in practice and evaluate interventions designed to influence the use of evidence in policymaking – will provide an opportunity to apply the framework and measures to real-world examples of EIPM, so we look forward to users’ feedback.