Evidence-based policy insists on describing, 
compiling and analyzing past experience – what 
has happened, with which resources, to whom, with 
which outcome – but it does so, necessarily, by 
selecting and narrowing the basis of what is 
considered to be evidence.  Mainly it is what can 
be counted and, therefore, what can be measured 
and managed.  In throwing its evidence-based net 
as widely as possible, this kind of policy 
insists that everything can be compared, while 
carefully selecting the units of 
comparison.  Standardization is a practice which 
strips away local contingencies and 
peculiarities.  The results are considered more objective.”

Helga Nowotny, How Many Policy Rooms are There?, 
Science, Technology, and Human Values, 32:4, July:2007, p 481



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