The big picture – Putting evidence at the centre of everyday life

Register now for the 29 June webinar co-hosted by the Cochrane Consumer Network Consumer Network), the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges (with one if its three implementation priorities being ‘putting evidence at the centre of everyday life,’ which is being overseen by the CitizenCitizen Leadership Group Leadership Group), and the World Health Organization’s Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet), focused on putting evidence at the centre of everyday life.

Register for this webinar.

This event is the first in a global webinar series for citizen leaders and citizen-serving NGOs and will discuss how we can:

• help citizens judge what others are claiming or more generally find (and receive) reliable information on a topic
• make evidence available to citizens when they are making choices
• engage citizens in asking questions and answering them (with new research or with existing evidence)
• make evidence-based choices the default or easy option.

Upcoming webinars in this series will include:

• Citizen-backed evidence – Engaging citizens in providing evidence synthesis and support (August 2023)
• Battling the bunk – Bringing evidence and citizen engagement to bear in addressing misinformation (October/November 2023)
• Pushing past platitudes – Co-designing structures and processes to support citizens in designing, executing and holding leaders accountable for achieving changes on the ground that are felt by everyday citizens (December 2023/January 2024)

Hosts

• Maureen Smith (co-host), Co-chair, Citizen Leadership Group, Evidence Commission (Canada)
• Modupe Adefeso-Olateju, Co-chair, Citizen Leadership Group, Evidence Commission; and Managing Director, The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre (Nigeria)

Speakers

• Allen Nsangi, Behavioural Scientist/Research Fellow at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Informed Health Choices Project (Uganda)
• Tracey Brown, Director, Sense About Science (United Kingdom)
• Adam Salisbury, Senior Research Associate, GiveWell (United States)
• Richard Morley, Consumer Engagement Officer, Cochrane and Cochrane Consumers Network (United Kingdom)
• Rebecca Maeso, Assistant Director, James Lind Alliance (United Kingdom)
• John Lavis, Co-lead, Evidence Commission (Canada)

Series Description

Citizens frequently make decisions where evidence would be helpful but face many challenges in doing so—from too much or inaccessible information to the deliberate spread of misinformation.

This webinar series titled, Putting evidence at the centre of everyday life: A global webinar series for citizen leaders and citizen-serving NGOs, pushes past the rhetoric about engaging citizens in evidence-informed decision-making and zeroes in on actionable ways to help citizen leaders and those who serve them, e.g., non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments – from finding reliable information to knowing which types of questions to ask to making evidence-based choices the default or easy option, and more.

While these are early days in understanding ‘what works’ in putting evidence at the centre of everyday life, this global webinar series will identify what is going well that needs to be systematized and scaled up, and what gaps should be prioritized to fill, and to work with government policymakers and citizen-serving NGOs, among others, to push for these improvements.

Hosted by Cochrane (and the Cochrane Cochrane Consumer Network Network), the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges (and its Citizen Leadership Group), and the World Health Organization’s Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet), this four-part webinar series takes place between June 2023 and January 2024:

Session I. The big picture – Putting evidence at the centre of everyday life (Jun 2023)
Session II. Citizen-backed evidence – Engaging citizens in providing evidence synthesis and support (including for evidence-informed policy-making) (Aug 2023)
Session III. Battling the bunk – Bringing evidence and citizen engagement to bear in addressing misinformation (Oct/Nov 2023)
Session IV. Pushing past platitudes – Co-designing structures and processes to support citizens in designing, executing and holding leaders accountable for achieving changes on the ground that are felt by everyday citizens (Dec 2023/Jan 2024)