On July 6, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) hosted a forum, “The Promise and Challenge of Evidence-Based Policy and Practice,” in Washington, DC. CLASP’s Rutledge Hutson moderated a discussion between Gordon Berlin, President of MDRC, and Lisbeth Schorr, Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard University. The panel was followed by an open question-and-answer session with the audience. A free video of the event is now available on the CLASP Web site.

In these tight economic times, there’s an increasing focus on evidence-based policy and practice to justify public expenditures, make every dollar stretch as far as possible, and maximize “returns on investments.” The forum explored the different types of evidence policymakers and practitioners have available to them — including theoretical research, administrative or management data, impact studies, and implementation studies — and examined which types of evidence best inform differing policy and practice choices.