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This article1 offers reflections on the use of data as evidence in 21st century policy-making. It discusses the concept of evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) as well as the governance and knowledge effects of data as evidence. With this focus, it interlinks the analysis of statistics and politics. The paper first introduces the concept of EIPM and the impact of evidence use. Here it focusses on science and knowledge as resources in policy-making, on the institutionalisation of science advice and on the translation of information and knowledge into evidence. The second part of the article reflects on data as evidence. This part concentrates on abstract and concrete functions of data as governance tools in policy-making, on data as a robust form of evidence and on the effects of data on knowledge and governance. The third part highlights challenges for data as evidence in policy-making, among them, politicisation, transparency, and diversity as well as objectivity and contestation. Finally, the last part draws conclusions on the production and use of data as evidence in EIPM. Throughout the second part of the reflections, reference is made to Walter Radermacher’s 2019 matrix of actors and activities related to data, facts, and policy published in this journal.

This introduction offers conceptual reflections to frame the special stream on statistical and data literacy in policy-making. It discusses the relevance of the use of statistics and data in politics and highlights their impact on policy-making. It underlines the need for and identifies key meanings of statistical and data literacy in policy-making. It also highlights how statistical and data literacy in policy-making is specific. Finally, it presents the individual contributions to the special stream that originate from the 2021 ISI World Statistics Congress Invited Paper Session on ‘Statistical and Data Literacy in Policy-Making’. The session was co-organised together with the Director of the IASE’s International Statistical Literacy Project (ISLP), Reija Helenius, to whom we are extremely grateful for linking our activities to the ISLP.