Communication, confidence and charisma are among some of the qualities found in good leaders -- but Philip Davies would add evidence to the list.
Evidence is "one of the things leaders need to engage in at least once in their lives," joked Davies, who serves on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet.
Introducing Davies, Director of the Fels Institute of Government Lawrence Sherman said, "His major focus in government has been putting evidence at the forefront of government policy-making."
Addressing the full room of mostly graduate students, Davies spoke of the circuitous path that led him to work for Blair's cabinet office.
It was while studying for his doctorate at Oxford that Davies began to focus on the need to incorporate a systematic evidence base and statistics into the creation of policies affecting the juvenile justice system.
After a Fulbright Fellowship in San Diego, Calif., he returned to the United Kingdom and embarked on a career with a constant theme of basing policy on evidence.
"I believe in the importance of evidence-based everything --criminal justice, social sciences, medicine," Davies said.
In 2000, he got the opportunity to bring evidence into policy-making at the highest level of government when he was invited to join the British Cabinet.
Davies used the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease as an example of how when policy-makers cannot access a solid evidence base, the government's effectiveness diminishes.
At the time, lack of understanding of the disease led to hesitation and argument about what should be done with infected cattle. In the end, the government decided to slaughter all farm animals within a three-kilometer radius of infected farms -- a move that Davies criticized as arbitrary.
Davies maintains that an evidence-based approach would have given a better understanding to officials about how the disease could spread. He said that some of the livestock might have been given vaccinations had there been more evidence available to agricultural ministers.
Some in the crowd were skeptical of placing too much importance on evidence in every aspect of public policy, noting that many politicians worry about conducting long, costly scientific-based studies that may undermine their authority after policy has already been set.
Davies consented that it is difficult to make the decision to spend millions of pounds on a study when there are schools in need of books.
Brette Fishman, a graduate student in the School of Arts and Sciences, asked, "Is it worth it from the perspective of a politician? Why would you choose an evidence-based approach compared to a qualitative approach?"
SAS graduate student Anthony Hollingworth expressed a different opinion. "Policy isn't just about what politicians think it might be."
