Building a coordinated evidence-support system in Canada to inform policymaking about health and social systems

COVID-19 has created a once-in-a-generation focus on evidence across levels of decision-makers. Their decisions have profoundly shaped the pandemic response and will shape responses to future societal challenges. With the value of evidence having been broadly recognized by many system leaders, the pandemic has fast-tracked collaboration among decision-makers and researchers. However, drawing from a range of types of evidence to inform the full spectrum of decision-making is not yet routine. Now is the time to systematize the aspects of using evidence that have gone well and address the many shortfalls. This challenge has been taken up by the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges, which will generate recommendations and pathways to influence to strengthen evidence-support systems. This grant will harness insights from the Commission to determine applicability to Canada for building a more coordinated evidence-support system. We propose to: 1) develop and maintain a living and searchable Canadian evidence ecosystem map of all the nodes of evidence support that are specifically designed to respond to pressing policy needs; 2) evaluate COVID-19 advisory structures and processes at the federal, provincial and territorial level to identify key features and activities of the pandemic evidence response; 3) identify insights from those involved in decision-making about key COVID-19 policy responses about whether and how different forms of evidence support were prioritized and used by decision-makers during the pandemic, lessons learned about what's needed to support evidence-informed policy responses; and 4) convene a stakeholder dialogue to spark action for piloting and scaling up efforts to build a coordinated evidence ecosystem in Canada. Our findings will be essential to 'make the case' for why governments and other funders should invest in a more coordinated evidence ecosystem in Canada to inform policymaking about health and social systems.