Policy decisions are more robust when they are informed by different sources of evidence rather than a single piece of research. But assembling a high-quality body of evidence can be challenging if many different organisations are involved, if the issue is a complex one and if the evidence is changing over time.

This paper looks at the experience of the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership in addressing this challenge and, in particular, their creation Annual Report Cards.

Members of the MCCIP gather together evidence on main policy-relevant issues and provide a realistic assessment of how confident scientists are in their knowledge about what is currently happening, and what is likely to happen in future. The report cards synthesise the evidence so it is accessible to non-specialist policy-makers and the public. 
This makes it easy for marine policymakers to access and understand complex evidence.

This innovative method of synthesising and presenting complex evidence has wide relevance for other sectors, and other countries.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute