21 | Policy Labs: Research for State and Local Government

On the Evidence

State and local governments often lack the capacity to clean, manage, and analyze administrative data that could be useful for achieving political and policy objectives. Some places have established policy labs to leverage researchers' skills to identify trends in the data, evaluate programs, and provide insights for improving public policies. On this episode of On the Evidence, we talk about the policy lab model with Kristin Klopfenstein, director of the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, and Melissa Wavelet, a senior fellow at MDRC and the former director of the Office of Performance and Strategic Outcomes at the Colorado Department of Human Services. This episode is part of a series produced by Mathematica in support of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and its fall research conference. Klopfenstein and Wavelett participated in an APPAM panel about policy labs. More information about the lab is available at: https://coloradolab.org/ More information about Wavelett and her current work at MDRC is available at: https://www.mdrc.org/about/melissa-wavelet