Organized by, Thomson Reuters, Daniel Duguay
There is increasing recognition that complex societal, economic and environmental issues are “systems-based problems”, where a wide variety of interrelated factors need to be simultaneously considered. Furthermore, it could be argued that the historical “piecemeal” approach to policy making is no longer effective, for it may fail to consider, or worse ignore, the systems-based considerations, thereby leading to increasingly complex unforeseen consequences, adverse impacts, and ineffective policies. Consequently, it is becoming necessary to take an effective systems perspective when developing or enhancing evidence-based decision making capacity.
The proposed concurrent panel would share their experiences and insights regarding enhancing decision making by way of a systems approach to evidence-based policy decision-making. Panelist would speak to the importance of taking a systems perspective to account for the broader complexity of policy decision-making. Under a systems approach, a stronger collaboration among policy decision-makers and diverse stakeholders is warranted, but requires a combination of tools, skills and mindset not readily available in many policy environments. It is precisely within this context that the quality and reliability of evidence becomes greater, including evidence which speaks to the inter-dependency and inter-relatedness of the various policy considerations. This panel will speak to these considerations in the context of the energy sector – a sector which has historically been highly system-dependent, and share how evidence-based policy decision-making is evolving in the area of energy policy.
The panel would be composed of 5 to 6 panelists, including:
- A senior representative from the Oil and Gas sector (energy stakeholder perspective)• A senior representative from the electricity and/or renewal energy sector (energy stakeholder perspective)
- A senior representative from Thomson Reuters (broad energy sector perspective)
- A leading academic and/or think tank representative (policy making perspective)
- A leading provincial and/or federal government policy representative (policy making perspective)
