PolicyAId - Policy Artificial Intelligence Digest
In recent decades, policy evaluation has generated an enormous amount of scientific evidence on the effectiveness of various measures. Although this information is publicly accessible, it rarely reaches those who design and implement policies in a truly usable form. Policy makers often lack the technical expertise or time needed to identify, filter, and extract key information from these studies. Existing attempts to synthesize research findings assume that policy makers are passive recipients of knowledge prepared “upstream,” without the ability to directly query the scientific literature on specific issues of interest to them. This creates a misalignment between when a public decision maker needs certain information and when it actually becomes available, limiting the use of empirical evidence in the decision-making process.
The Project
PolicyAId is an innovative project, funded by the Grins Foundation, aimed at transforming how policy makers access scientific evidence. Developed in partnership with the Digital Humanities unit of FBK’s Digital Society center, the project adopts a co-design approach with public decision makers to create an artificial intelligence-based system that will be integrated into the AMELIA platform.
At the heart of the project is the development of methodological filters based on artificial intelligence that facilitate and speed up the process of synthesizing scientific literature, allowing responses to policy makers’ requests quickly and at contained costs. The system will not only filter the most relevant and methodologically sound studies but will also apply corrections for potential biases in the literature, such as publication bias.
The platform will also allow customization of output formats based on the specific needs of each public decision maker, maximizing communicative impact and effective understanding of research results. This innovative approach promotes direct interaction between policy makers and scientific research, fostering public policies based on solid empirical evidence.
