In this seminar, Professor Kathryn Oliver will introduce research drawing on interviews with policymakers and academics to explore how different forms of knowledge gain credibility in policymaking, and what this means for transparency and public health.

The seminar is hosted by PSI and will be chaired by Tess Johnson. It will take place on Tuesday, 11 March 2026, from 12.30 to 13.30, followed by lunch and a chance to network with colleagues.

About the speaker
Professor Kathryn Oliver is a social scientist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is interested in how we make, mobilise and use evidence in policy and practice.
Professor Oliver co-directs the research collaboration ‘Transforming Evidence’, which brings together funders, decision-makers, practitioners and researchers from a range of disciplines and sectors. This collaboration aims to both do research on evidence production and use, and to ensure that the research scientists do is used by policymakers.

Seminar outline
Debates about the role of evidence in policymaking have tended to focus primarily on how to increase the influence of academic research evidence on policy. This approach to the role of knowledge in policy sidesteps the question of what types of knowledge are used and valued in policymaking, and how different forms of knowledge may interact with policy.
Drawing on 55 interviews with policymakers and academics, Professor Oliver will explore how personal/institutional characteristics and processes confer credibility to knowledge for policy in informal and formal contexts.
Using the generation of credibility as a lens to understand the effects of these values on scientific and policy processes allows us to understand the broader strengths and limitations of different forms of knowledge within the policy arena.
Professor Oliver will close with some reflections on transparency in policymaking, and the implications of this for public health.