To improve people's lives

Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips, so much data to understand the world, and so many tools to verify it. And yet, never before has it been so easy to get lost in fake news, biased headlines, and half-truths. This same contradiction has also taken hold in public debate: never before has so much evidence been produced and used to guide policy, and at the same time, never before have politicians been so polarized and so unwilling to listen to what the data says.

Over the past decade, science has become increasingly involved in the design and evaluation of public policies. Institutions such as Ivalía in Catalonia or the AIReF In the State, they have contributed to normalizing the idea that it is necessary to measure the impact that each public euro has on the well-being of citizens. Administrations and institutions are gradually incorporating indicators, models, and evaluation mechanisms in areas where data was rarely collected, such as educational policies or... programs to combat child povertyIt is a slow but profound change, which has professionalized the way decisions are made and has made it more transparent what works and what doesn't.

However, all this technical progress has coexisted with a political debate that has often moved in the opposite direction. In the same public sphere, rigorous reports can circulate alongside completely unfounded claims. We see this in global issues such as climate change, where widely established scientific consensus continues to be questioned, or in surprising statements—such as those of the President of the United States suggesting a relationship between paracetamol and autism- which receive more attention than much verified evidence. It's a debate that tends to oversimplify what requires nuance and often rewards viral slogans over verifiable results.

Ten years ago, with the aim of bringing science closer to public decisions, four researchers founded KSNETWe wanted to connect data with citizens' needs and bring more rigor to areas often guided by intuition. Over time, this drive has allowed us to see how policies improve people's lives when they are designed and evaluated with evidence. And to celebrate this first decade, we have reviewed everything we have learned. The result is a book –Ten policies for a decade– which compiles ten public policies that have shaped the decade, with contributions from experts in fields such as housing, employment, education, health, and climate change. the presentation ceremonyCouncilor Martínez Bravo provided the key to consolidating this dynamic of scientific policy analysis in our country: shifting the perspective from viewing evaluation as a tool for oversight to one of constructive criticism. Evaluation should not be seen as an examination of the person implementing an initiative, but rather as a tool for learning and improving practices. For science to prevail over media noise, it is necessary to focus more on evaluating public policies themselves, and less on those who promote them.