Supporting policy with scientific evidence

Wouter Lammers works on a doctoral research project to investigate how civil servants deal with uncertainty information, at the Public Governance Institute of the KU Leuven. 

Uncertainty presents a serious challenge to civil servants, but little is known about how civil servants interpret and use uncertainty information. This doctoral research is part of an interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars in epistemology, public management, and evidence-informed policy making. I apply cutting-edge research methods, such as eye-tracking and simulations of opinion dynamics, which have only seldom been applied in the context of evidence utilization. I'm especially interested in what uncertainty types receive most attention and how uncertainty interacts with with the timing of its communication.

Supervisors are prof. dr. Steven van de Walle, prof. dr. Sylvia Wenmackers and prof. dr. Valérie Pattyn.