Background

While they have long collected data, increasingly in digital form, government agencies have struggled to create the infrastructure and acquire the skills needed to make use of this administrative data to realize the promise of evidence-based policymaking. But some states are already out ahead, establishing offices known as Data Labs or Policy Labs to enable states to partner with academia and make use of state administrative data to evaluate and ultimately improve programs and policies. By establishing the necessary technical infrastructure and governance mechanisms to help government gain access to much-needed analytical talent, these data labs are helping to convert data into insights and driving more evidence-based policymaking and service delivery. Urgently needed, however, are more such labs with the capacity to turn the data government collects into improvements in policies and services and the expansion of existing labs to enable nonprofits as well as government to evaluate their offerings using state data.

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