policy experimentation

What is successful policy experimentation?

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By Kate Mattocks

Governments around the world undertake policy experiments – temporary, often micro-level interventions – to try new things and ‘learn what works.’ But what makes an experiment successful? This is the question I explore in my recent article published in Policy & Politics.

Discussions of success are surprisingly absent from the literature. We might think of success as a positive hypothesis: i.e. achieving an expected result. But this doesn’t capture all of the possible outcomes of experiments, and it also doesn’t consider the process of carrying them out.

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Design science in public policy and administration research: how to actually apply it?

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romme & meijer.pngGeorges Romme and Albert Meijer

Local, regional and national governments are struggling to find solutions for complex problems such as sustainability, quality of life, and poverty. Public policy researchers are therefore increasingly called upon to help in crafting solutions to these complex challenges. Accordingly, scholars in the field of public policy and administration need to rethink their usual ‘bystander’ approach to designing policy and, instead, engage more in experimentation and interventions that can help change and improve governance systems.   Continue reading →