How to go about the design of a project that focuses on the ways different forms of evidence and knowledge are used to inform policy decisions? How to identify entry points, opportunities, and the problems that policymaking organisations want to solve rather than starting from… Read More
The history of universities and higher education in Somalia is marked by the civil war that began in 1991 and which lasted for more than 10 years and which brought the higher education to a halt. How is the university landscape recovering and developing? What… Read More
I am getting more feedback about the discussion paper published by Southern Voice that I have co-produced with Maria Malho, Vanesa Weyrauch and Fred Carden with support from HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation, State Capability, Policymaking and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Do Knowledge Systems Matter?. The aim of… Read More
Here my takeaways from two great days at the University of Oulu where I attended the Burning Questions 2019 event to discuss and challenge the status quo of education systems and education in international development.
One of the things I enjoy doing during the summer in Finland is to work in the garden, in the late afternoon, and listen to a LSE public lecture podcast. Last week I listened to two really interesting ones. In the first podcast, Tracking the Rise in… Read More
During a seminar organised by the EduKnow research group at the University of Tampere on comparative education, I came across the interesting concept of reference society. In a nutshell, countries which, like Finland, find themselves at the top of the PISA ranking may become models or references… Read More
I was recently in Florence to meet the team at the UNICEF’s Office of Research-Innocenti and present & discuss some of the experiences of the Knowledge Sector Initiative in Indonesia. I was part of the implementing team during phase 1 from 2013-2017 leading the research and… Read More
The Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade has a long history. It was established in 1838 and today it is located in a modern building in downtown Belgrade. I went there to meet Dragan Stanojević, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology. I wanted… Read More
The search for ways to design policies that help to solve societal problems is continuously evolving. The traditional evidence-based approach to policy making involves generating research results and using these to inform policy decisions. This blog post is based on an interview with Mikko Annala, Head… Read More
At the Knowledge Sector Initiative we have just published two new working papers on various aspects of the Indonesian Knowledge Sector and on evidence to policy processes, systems, and experiences. I really enjoyed working on these papers. Is Measuring Policy Influence Like Measuring Thin Air? The Experience… Read More
