Local Economic Growth What Works Centre

What Works中心的目标是在设计和实施促进地方经济增长和就业的政策时显著改善证据的使用，从而在这些领域制定更有效的政策和决策。为实现这一目标，该中心将汇集来自三个不同机构的顶尖专家：伦敦经济学院、城市中心和奥雅纳。伦敦经济学院将领导该中心，协调所有三个伙伴的工作。它将确保中心的独立性，并监督一个提供世界一流专业知识的学术小组的工作，以确保中心的工作稳健和严谨，并被用户视为如此。中心将利用多年来与当地行动者合作的经验，加上广泛的网络和联系，带头参与，以确保用户能够获得和使用中心的工作。奥雅纳将领导证据收集和综合，利用评估、最佳实践审查、开发最佳实践指南和项目管理方面的专业知识。他们将与学术小组合作，确保及时提供有力的证据审查，这些审查将构成中心的核心书面产出。我们认为，中心第一年的当务之急应该是：1)确定有足够证据来正确评估有效性的关键政策干预措施；Ii)进行系统审查，对这些干预措施进行排序；Iii)确保决策者能够获得调查结果。为了实现这些紧迫的优先事项，我们将制定一种透明的方法，对与当地经济增长有关的干预措施进行排名；对现有证据基础进行系统评估，并开发一个在线工具包，允许用户比较使用共同货币排名的干预措施。在中期（第2至3年），中心将利用我们的证据基础和参与工具，重点发展有效的知识交流和能力建设。我们的目标是：i)确保证据基础被用于改进政策制定；Ii)进一步加强证据基础所涵盖的政策领域（回应用户反馈和新出现的需求）。我们将通过促进良好监测和评价的好处来做到这一点；为公共部门决策者制定指南；并与少数主要的地方行动者合作，为其他人制定最佳实践和指导。中心的长期目标是确保证据在政策制定中得到广泛应用，确保新政策得到有效评估，确保个人和组织有能力将研究结果反馈到未来的政策制定中。实际上，这些长期目标可以在最初三年的资助中部分实现，但不能完全实现。为了帮助实现这些长期目标，我们将与地方和中央政府合作，改善数据管理；与选定的当地行动者合作制定示范项目；并确定突出的研究缺口和填补这些缺口的资助机会。为确保中心的工作对决策者有用，并为决策者所用，中心将作为一个开放、灵活的学习型组织运作。我们将建立机制，让用户帮助塑造中心的优先事项和发展；扩大和更新我们的证据基础，以反映不断变化的需求和出现的新证据。我们还将积极参与What Works网络，与国家顾问合作开发网络和共同标准，努力实现认证并参与What Works网络有效性的评估。

The What Works Centre aims to significantly improve the use of evidence in the design and delivery of policies for local economic growth and employment leading to more effective policies and policymaking in these areas.To achieve this aim the Centre will bring together leading experts from three different institutions: the London School of Economics, Centre for Cities and Arup. LSE would lead the Centre, coordinating the work of all three partners. It would ensure the Centre's independence and oversee the work of an academic panel providing world-class expertise to ensure the Centre's work is robust and rigorous, and viewed as such by users. CfC would lead on engagement, drawing on many years' experience working with local actors, plus extensive networks and contacts, to ensure that users are able to access and use the work of the Centre. Arup would lead on evidence-gathering and synthesis, drawing on expertise in evaluation, best practice review, developing best practice guidance, and project management. They would work with the academic panel to ensure timely delivery of robust evidence reviews that will constitute the Centre's core written outputs. We believe that the immediate, year one, priorities of the Centre should be to i) identify key policy interventions where there is sufficient evidence to properly assess effectiveness; ii) undertake systematic reviews to rank these interventions; iii) ensure that the findings are accessible to policy makers. To deliver these immediate priorities we will develop a transparent methodology to rank interventions relevant to local economic growth; conduct a systematic assessment of the existing evidence base, and develop an online toolkit allowing users to compare interventions ranked using a common currency. In the medium term (years two to three), the Centre will focus on developing effective knowledge exchange and capacity-building, using our evidence base and engagement tools. We will aim to i) ensure that the evidence base is used to improve policy making; ii) further enhance the policy areas covered by of the evidence base (responding to user feedback and emerging needs). We will do this through promoting the benefits of good monitoring and evaluation; developing guidance for public sector policymakers; and working with a small number of leading local actors to develop best practice and guidance for others. The longer term aims of the Centre are to ensure that evidence is widely used in the development of policy, to ensure that new policies are effectively evaluated and that individuals and organisations have the capacity to feed the findings back into future policy development. Realistically, these long term aims can be partially but not fully achieved within the initial three years of funding. To help secure these longer-term goals, we will work with local and central government to improve data management; partner with selected local actors to develop demonstration projects; and identify outstanding research gaps and funding opportunities to fill these. To ensure that the work of the Centre is useful to, and thus used by, policy makers the Centre will operate as an open, flexible, learning organisation. We will develop mechanisms to allow users to help shape the Centre's priorities and development; and expand and update our evidence base to reflect changing needs and new evidence that emerges. We will also actively participate in the What Works network, working with the National Advisor to develop the network and common standards, working to achieve accreditation and participating in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the What Works network.