How can the principles of research transparency be applied to policy research? What opportunities are there for the incoming administration? BITSS Research Scientist Fernando Hoces de la Guardia and Program Manager Jo Weech discuss recommendations for the Congressional Budget Office, a key actor in the legislative process.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), established in 1974, plays a critical role in the U.S. federal government. The CBO is an independent, non-partisan agency that provides Congress with budget and economic information, analyzing the potential fiscal impacts of proposed legislation. It reports on everything from healthcare policy to tax reforms to meet the needs of policymakers. CBO’s analysis serves as a crucial decision-making tool for lawmakers, offering comprehensive economic projections that can make or break policy proposals. Transparency is a top priority for CBO, and CBO reports on its transparency activities annually to congress.
Through its Open Policy Analysis (OPA) initiative, BITSS has been at the forefront of exploring how open science principles can be applied to governance and policy-making. The initiative recognizes that transparency in policy analysis is not just an academic exercise, but a tool for improving the efficacy, rigor, and accountability of decision making.
As Fernando Hoces de la Guardia notes in previous BITSS research, “Multiple opaque analytical choices give way to multiple reports, and multiple reports allow policymakers to choose the most convenient set of ‘facts’.” This observation underscores the critical importance of applying open science principles in a governance context, where policy decisions can profoundly impact millions of lives.
The CBO faces unique challenges in making its work more transparent and reproducible. While the organization has made notable strides—such as releasing code for selected analyses, using GitHub for version control, and creating interactive visualizations—substantial room for improvement remains.
The Open Policy Analysis (OPA) framework offers a structured approach to enhancing transparency. It focuses on three key dimensions: open output, open analysis, and open materials. For the CBO, this means:
- Clearly pre-specifying policy outputs
- Making methodological procedures easily accessible
- Publicly sharing raw data and supporting documents
Incremental improvements could include:
- Expanding code availability across more reports
- Developing standardized file structures
- Creating comprehensive readme files
- Clearly citing sources for specific parameters
- Distinguishing between raw and analysis data
These recommendations aren’t just relevant to the CBO. They represent broader opportunities for transparency across government agencies. By gradually adopting more open practices, policy analysis can become more credible, collaborative, and ultimately more effective. The goal isn’t to isn’t to add red tape, but to improve the quality of policymaking. As research becomes increasingly sophisticated and more data and tools are available, our analytical processes must also evolve.
The Biden administration has explicitly prioritized evidence-based policymaking and scientific integrity. In January 2021, President Biden signed a memorandum on scientific integrity, emphasizing the importance of scientific independence and the public’s trust in scientific processes. This commitment provides a timely backdrop for expanding open policy analysis principles across federal agencies.
Open policy analysis principles will be particularly important with the imminent change in administration. Open Policy Analysis (OPA) principles provide a structured approach that can bolster accountability by establishing clear, reproducible methodologies, making analytical processes transparent, and ensuring that political projections are grounded in verifiable data.
We look forward to seeing how organizations like the CBO will continue to innovate and improve their transparency practices, setting new standards for evidence-based policy-making.