The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act) was enacted in early 2019 and has led a wide range of federal agencies to take new steps in building and using evidence, including developing learning agendas. The Act, however, didn’t come with new funding, so resources are likely a constraint in many agencies in doing this type of work. It’s one reason why the topic of researcher-practitioner partnerships — including using Intergovernmental Personnel Act agreements (aka IPAs) — is an especially timely one. It’s also a valuable topic for agencies not covered by the Evidence Act that want to better use evidence and data to inform decisions.
To learn more, we are joined by Dr. Dayanand Manoli. He’s an economist and a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and has collaborated with the IRS on several research projects, as we highlighted on this podcast in 2016. Recently, he co-hosted, with Kathy Stack, a workshop at the Partnership for Public Service on the topic of IPAs within federal agencies.