Evidence of "Evidence-Based Policymaking"

This paper presents empirical evidence on "evidence-based policy making" (EBP) in Japan, and discusses the problems to be resolved for diffusing EBP. Major findings can be summarized as follows. First, government officials, academic researchers, and the general public recognize the necessity of EBP, but their evaluation of actual implementation of EBP is low. Second, insufficient skills to analyze statistical data and understand academic research, politics-driven decision makings without evidence, and insufficient culture of EBP in the governmental organizations are pointed out as the major obstacles of implementing EBP. Third, the general public does not well recognize the notion of EBP, but highly-educated individuals, particularly those who graduated from science and engineering fields, have high level of recognition of EBP. Fourth, use of academic papers in the Japanese government's white papers quantitatively lags behind international standard.