Garret Christensen (Assistant Project Scientist, BITSS) represented BITSS at a conference on Reproducibility in Federal Evaluations organized by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. Dean Karlan (Yale; President, IPA; Chair, J-PAL's Finance Program), Rachel Glennerster (Executive Director, J-PAL; IPA Affiliate), and Stephanie Wykstra (Research Manager, IPA) also participated in the conference.The conference brought together academics, contract researchers, and government sponsors of research to discuss how research transparency could become part of federal policy, and ideally lead to policies based on better evidence.

On April 17, the Ministry of Education of Peru, J-PAL LAC and IPA Peru will host a workshop aimed at presenting to the Ministry’s implementing units how they can collaborate with EduLAB, the innovation lab on education policy established within the Secretariat of Strategic Planning of the Ministry of Education. EduLAB identifies areas for improvements in education policy and works with academics to develop low-cost, evidence-based interventions to address them.Interventions designed in the framework of the lab are subsequently rigorously evaluated using administrative data, which significantly lowers the cost of conducting experimental evaluations.

IPA, the International Growth Centre, and Laterite hosted the 4th Rwanda Research Roundtable.The theme of the event was “Insights from Behavioural Economics.” Annie Duflo (Executive Director, IPA) spoke about “Scaling Up Interventions: Lessons for Behavioral Policy.” The Rwanda Research Roundtable (R3) is an informal forum for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to advance the research agenda in Rwanda.