May 2024

On May 15, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a report, Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking, intended as a resource for federal policymakers to incorporate the social and behavioral sciences to improve policy and program design and delivery.  

The report notes: “The social and behavioral sciences offer unique tools for describing, understanding, and addressing societal challenges, and assessing and evaluating initiatives, programs, and policies.”

As part of this guidance, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Subcommittee on Social and Behavioral Sciences developed a recommended framework for federal agencies to use when incorporating social and behavioral science into evidence-based policymaking. The framework includes identifying opportunity areas, considering social and behavioral insights, synthesizing evidence and highlighting best practices, identifying actionable steps and policy mechanisms, implementing and disseminating, and reflecting and revising. The framework also supports three core tenets: meaningful engagement, building evidence, and promoting equity.

The report also includes five recommendations for federal agencies to enable the use of social and behavioral science in policymaking:

• Invest in the continued building and strengthening of dynamic and durable evidence ecosystems to support evidence-based policymaking.
• Promote meaningful engagement and partnership by strengthening connections between the federal government, the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and communities.
• Reduce barriers by increasing buy-in for social and behavioral science from senior leadership across the federal government, reducing administrative burdens for social and behavioral science evidence generation, and improving data equity and access.
• Increase capacity for social and behavioral science through increased investment in a social and behavioral science-trained workforce and increased support for interagency efforts dependent on social and behavioral science expertise.
• Mandate social and behavioral science-informed strategies through federal funding practices that prioritize proposals that include evidence-based social and behavioral science strategies, support the generation of new evidence to help fill knowledge gaps, and institute rigorous evaluation requirements.

“We thank OSTP and the NSTC Subcommittee on Social and Behavioral Sciences for producing this report and for developing a framework that federal agencies can use to incorporate social and behavioral sciences into evidence-based policymaking at the outset,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine.

A technical appendix to the report includes examples of how the social and behavioral science framework can be applied to national priorities. National Science Foundation grants and data from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection were among the research and data collections cited as ways federal agencies are using social and behavioral science aligned with the framework steps.

The appendix highlights several examples of effective strategies used to apply social and behavioral sciences in evidence-based policymaking. One of the examples focuses on education programs as part of “Going Beyond Recidivism to Determining Successful Reentry and Strengthening Public Safety.” This appendix includes actions that could be taken to address this topic, including strengthening common data definitions and collection procedures, building better evidence, and exploring accessibility supports available for incarcerated individuals with disabilities.