The impact potentials of decision science

Newly released research on decision science addresses the need to look more closely at both the field’s strengths and the gaps in methodology and application.

Dr Chris Baker, Research Fellow at Melbourne Centre for Data Science, announced the findings of his team’s scientific research in which they “aimed to characterise how decision science can work in different contexts, depending on the urgency of decisions”.

The paper argues that decision science has been used widely in business but, as yet, has not been as widely accepted in science; an area where it could make an impact. In this research, a focus is on utilisation of the framework in pandemic prevention, environmental conservation and public policy.

"A key message is that decision science isn’t a set of tools or methods to follow. It is an approach to problem formulation focused on identifying useful actions and making good decisions. Importantly, part of this is identifying critical information gaps. This is the role of scientific research, where we aim to better understand the world around us. If we want to maximise impact on public policy, we need to understand of how decisions are made and how scientific research fits in the puzzle," says Dr Baker.

The research is publicly available and can be found here.

Funding and support for this research came from The Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The Centre for Research Excellence in Policy Relevant Infectious diseases Simulation and Mathematical Modelling, Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis, and The Centre for Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers.