INETxOECD

The method of policy and decision making in both the public and the private domain should rely mainly on three key constituents: (i) assumptions, (ii) modelling and (iii) empirical validation. All of the three are tightly interconnected as one can make the other collapse and as such they all have to be thoroughly researched and validated.

Models should make sound and useful predictions: they should be able to forecast the future in a sense and their validation comes from empirical data. At the same time, the increasing quest for quantification and quantitative forecasting has led to arguable models, to say the least, if not to blatant malpractice. In some domains, there has been a dangerous shift from evidence-based policymaking to policy-based evidence, with extremely high social and economic costs.

Which analytical tools can be adopted in order to guide policy-makers to achieve the desired societal impacts? How can reliability of modeling and prediction be improved? This event will then focus on new approaches to modelling and forecasting towards more sustainable goals, bringing together young scholars and policymakers to discuss a broad range of topics including impact investing, SDGs and ESG impact evaluation, patent analytics, foresight methods.