How can capacity development promote evidence-informed policy making?

This is the starting assumption behind the Building Capacity to Use Research Evidence Programme (BCURE), a £13 million initiative by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) that runs from 2013-2017. The BCURE programme aims to increase the capacity of policy makers to use research more effectively, through building the skills, incentives and systems required to access, appraise and apply evidence in decision making. Itad is leading a three year impact evaluation of BCURE (2014-2017), examining how and why different approaches to capacity building for evidenceinformed policy making work, for whom, and in which contexts. The evaluation aims to strengthen the evidence base on how capacity building can promote evidenceinformed policy, to inform decisions within and beyond DFID about whether to fund and how to design this type of programme in future.