Professor Kathryn Oliver is a social scientist, interested in how we make, mobilise and use evidence in policy and practice. She co-directs the research collaboration Transforming Evidence, which brings together funders, decision-makers, practitioners and researchers from a range of disciplines and sectors. She aims to both do research on evidence production and use, and to ensure that the research she does is used.

Kathryn started work as a molecular biologist, and moved into social sciences and public health when conducting systematic reviews for policymakers, at the EPPI Centre. Interested in how evidence informed policy, she used social network analysis to explore the role of social structure in evidence use in local government for her PhD. During this work she connected with a hugely interdisciplinary community of researchers with similar interests, which led ultimately to the formation of Transforming Evidence. She has held research and teaching posts at Manchester, Oxford and UCL, and now at LSHTM.

She is currently working as a Fellow in the UK Government Office for Science, exploring how evidence knowledge needs are articulated and acted on by central government. Other work includes evaluation of various academic-policy engagement initiatives, working with funders and decision-makers in the UK, EU and USA to understand science-policy systems, and developing the field of evidence studies.