The value of science can and must be factored into policy evaluation

Moreover, it is high time to measure not only economic value, but also the value for indicators of broad well-being. That concept comprises numerous dimensions: in addition to economic factors, happiness, sustainability, equal opportunity, and health need to be included, for example.

At the request of the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science, an Academy advisory committee chaired by the econometrist Mirjam van Praag considered how the value of science can be expressed. On 24 February, Prof. Van Praag and the Academy’s President, Prof. Marileen Dogterom, presented the committee’s advisory report to the Minister, Prof. Robbert Dijkgraaf, in The Hague.

In the report, the Academy states that science has many values, the first of which is its own intrinsic value. Through education, it helps people develop into citizens and productive members of society. It also contributes to sustainability and health. The advisory report presents nine examples that reflect the various different values of science.

The value of science is much greater and broader than what we can observe. Moreover, measuring the value of science in so far as it can actually be observed is extremely complicated. The effects of science often only manifest themselves in the longer term, and are difficult to unravel. Nevertheless, the Academy concludes that even the value of science that is in fact measurable is not included in the methods used for the systematic evaluation of policy options or party programmes. These current methods are unsuitable for factoring in the effects of investment, for example in education and research. Moreover, outcome measures such as health or equality of opportunity are not addressed in these models, which focus mainly on economic indicators.

According to the Academy, it is both possible and urgent for the planning agencies to jointly change course when systematically evaluating policies and programmes. It is high time they started using the many methods that already exist to identify the value of science of broad well-being. For instance, scientists are already engaged in numerous studies that are useful for this purpose, for example in the field of education. These studies can be of both a quantitative and qualitative nature, and consider a wide range of outcomes. Collecting, evaluating, and augmenting such partial studies with various outcome measures that together measure broad well-being should form the basis of a new range of methods for systematic evaluation of policy. In this regard, some outcomes are only qualitatively or even “narratively” measurable.

The Academy welcomes the fact that the planning agencies are already working on indicators for measuring broad well-being. It does express concern, however, that there is so far no plan whatsoever to make use of this to develop a range of methods for systematically measuring the value of investment in science. The Academy therefore calls on the combined planning agencies to immediately add the available methods to those on which administrators base their policy decisions.