Human-centred policy? Blending “big data” and “thick data” in national policy

How might policymakers better understand citizens’ perspectives when designing policy? Put another way, how should we improve and innovate the way policy is made to ensure it becomes more human-centred?

Over the last four years the UK Policy Lab has been exploring the use of ethnography as a tool for policy-making. Ethnography offers an approach to deeply understand people’s lives. This can contribute to a body of evidence that informs future policies, which can be tested at a later stage.

This blog post looks at how to best involve citizens’ “lived-experiences” in the policy-making process and how to combine it with other forms of data.