AAPSS Board Member and Fellow Ken Prewitt has co-authored (with Thomas Schwandt and Miron Straf) Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy, published by National Academies Press. “This has been the most difficult professional task I’ve undertaken,” said Prewitt of what it took to bring together the relatively six-inch report. In it, Prewitt “investigates why scientific evidence is important to policy making and argues that an extensive body of research on knowledge utilization has not led to any widely accepted explanation of what it means to use science in public policy. [The report] identifies the gaps in our understanding and develops a framework for a new field of research to fill those gaps.”
Prewitt is is the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
