Tracey Brown is on a mission to promote and protect the public interest in the use of evidence – for policymaking, for scientific research, for everyday life. Join the director of Sense about Science as she reflects on the challenges of campaigning to put sound science at the heart of public life and empower people to ask questions about the evidence behind policies.
Tracey speaks to some important friends of Sense about Science who have campaigned alongside us over the past 20 years for openness about evidence: statistics regulator Ed Humpherson (09:22); head of the US Foundation for Child Development Vivian Tseng (03:24); David Spiegelhalter, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Cambridge (20:19); and popular author and professor of evidence-based medicine Ben Goldacre (33:57); to discuss where we are now and what is left to do to ensure that evidence is for the people.
Tracey Brown OBE is the director of Sense about Science, where she has turned the case for sound science and evidence into popular campaigns, including AllTrials, a global campaign for the reporting of clinical trial outcomes, and ‘Ask for Evidence’. Tracey leads Sense about Science’s work on transparency of decisions, to ensure the public has access to the same evidence as decision-makers. This has included establishing the Principles for the Treatment of Independent Scientific Advice and the Transparency of Evidence framework, now internationally emulated. In 2022 she led the What Counts? inquiry, and a national survey of the public’s experience of policy information during the pandemic and is leading calls for all policy announcements to meet an evidence transparency standard. Tracey is also honorary Professor, Science, Technology and Engineering in Public Policy at UCL.
Vivian Tseng is President and CEO of the Foundation for Child Development, where she champions evidence-informed policy and practice. She is a pioneer for people-centred research and the democratisation of evidence.
Ed Humpherson is head of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) where he champions the public’s access to high quality statistics that reflect the society we live in, and ensures that those statistics are used accurately.
David Spiegelhalter is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge. He has pioneered important improvements to the way that statistical evidence is used by health professionals, lawyers, journalists and policymakers.
Ben Goldacre is a prominent voice raising concerns over variation in medical care, uses of electronic health data and access to trial data. As Director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science he led the development of Open Safely, a fully open-source and secure analytics platform for NHS data.
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