In 2011, social scientists at Harvard launched an ambitious initiative based on a simple, somewhat old-fashioned premise: that evidence and reason should play a greater role in shaping public policy. Since then, the Scholars Strategy Network has added chapters in 38 states and connected hundreds of scholars with local experts, legislators, and eachother. Executive Director Paola Maynard-Moll joins University of Hawaii professor Robert Perkinson to discuss the organization’s efforts to bring facts to power. How can academic research translate into public policy with measurable benefits? And how can the SSN initiative persist in an era of misinformation and devalued truth? 

Paola Maynard-Moll is the executive director of the Scholar's Strategy Network.

Robert Perkinson is an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the founder of the Better Tomorrow Speaker Series.

The Better Tomorrow Speaker Series features incisive conversations on the most pressing issues of our time. The project is a joint venture of the University of Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i Community Foundation, and Kamehameha Schools.

BTSS website: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/speakers/ 

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