Selected work.
A selection of projects showing how PolicySpark helps public and social-sector teams turn complex information into decision-ready clarity—strategy, prioritization, results logic, and practical next steps.
Evidence at scale · pathway portfolioASEAN Environment System Map (ASPEN)
Client: The Asia Foundation (ASEAN)
A regional system model built from a large evidence base, translated into a practical portfolio of pathways to support prioritization, bundling, and sequencing across interconnected domains.
- Scale with traceability: worked across 700+ sources, processed into structured influence statements used to build an evidence-backed graph and pathway portfolio
- Decision-first outputs: a curated set of “if we act here, then…” pathways plus cross-cutting enabling conditions, risks, and validation priorities
- Human review built in: structured extraction to handle scale, refined through human-in-the-loop validation (not black-box conclusions)
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ASEAN Environment System Map (ASPEN)
Client: The Asia Foundation (ASEAN)
A regional system model built from a large evidence base, translated into a practical portfolio of pathways to support prioritization, bundling, and sequencing across interconnected domains.
- Scale with traceability: worked across 700+ sources, processed into structured influence statements used to build an evidence-backed graph and pathway portfolio
- Decision-first outputs: a curated set of “if we act here, then…” pathways plus cross-cutting enabling conditions, risks, and validation priorities
- Human review built in: structured extraction to handle scale, refined through human-in-the-loop validation (not black-box conclusions)
Knowledge governance · ethical collaborationBridging Knowledge Systems (Peace-Athabasca Delta)
Client: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
A practical framework for ethical knowledge sharing and Indigenous intellectual property protection to support respectful, trust-based collaboration among Indigenous communities, government, and researchers.
- Built around clear guidance on rights, consent (FPIC), and cultural protocols
- Concrete agreement tools: MOUs, data-sharing agreements, consent forms, and plain-language definitions to reduce misunderstandings
- Practical data handling across the lifecycle: collection, secure storage, access controls, controlled sharing, and disposal/return
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Bridging Knowledge Systems (Peace-Athabasca Delta)
Client: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
A practical framework for ethical knowledge sharing and Indigenous intellectual property protection to support respectful, trust-based collaboration among Indigenous communities, government, and researchers.
- Built around clear guidance on rights, consent (FPIC), and cultural protocols
- Concrete agreement tools: MOUs, data-sharing agreements, consent forms, and plain-language definitions to reduce misunderstandings
- Practical data handling across the lifecycle: collection, secure storage, access controls, controlled sharing, and disposal/return
Stakeholder modeling · causal graph + leverage pointsKnowledge Use in Salmon Conservation & Management
Client: Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) — Pacific Salmon
A stakeholder-driven modeling study that built a directed, weighted causal graph from workshop input to identify leverage points affecting how knowledge supports salmon decisions.
- Clear guiding question posed to participants: improving knowledge use for more effective salmon decision-making
- Workshops produced models that were analyzed as directed weighted graphs, including an “unprocessed union graph,” influence graphs, and a leverage points graph
- Built to compare perspectives and surface gaps, contradictions, and synergies across groups
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Knowledge Use in Salmon Conservation & Management
Client: Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) — Pacific Salmon
A stakeholder-driven modeling study that built a directed, weighted causal graph from workshop input to identify leverage points affecting how knowledge supports salmon decisions.
- Clear guiding question posed to participants: improving knowledge use for more effective salmon decision-making
- Workshops produced models that were analyzed as directed weighted graphs, including an “unprocessed union graph,” influence graphs, and a leverage points graph
- Built to compare perspectives and surface gaps, contradictions, and synergies across groups
Scientific Integrity Policy · Theory of Change + indicatorsModel Scientific Integrity Policy (mSIP): Theory of Change & Performance Indicators
Client: Office of the Chief Science Advisor (Canada)
An evidence-based Theory of Change and indicator set to support departments and agencies in implementing the Model Policy on Scientific Integrity and building performance monitoring and evaluation plans.
- Combined literature review with three stakeholder-driven model-building workshops involving 15 departments and agencies
- Produced a causal model of results pathways (hypotheses), identified 9 policy leverage points, and constructed an mSIP Theory of Change
- Proposed candidate indicators and a monitoring approach to test what’s working over time
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Model Scientific Integrity Policy (mSIP): Theory of Change & Performance Indicators
Client: Office of the Chief Science Advisor (Canada)
An evidence-based Theory of Change and indicator set to support departments and agencies in implementing the Model Policy on Scientific Integrity and building performance monitoring and evaluation plans.
- Combined literature review with three stakeholder-driven model-building workshops involving 15 departments and agencies
- Produced a causal model of results pathways (hypotheses), identified 9 policy leverage points, and constructed an mSIP Theory of Change
- Proposed candidate indicators and a monitoring approach to test what’s working over time
Featured Case StudyASEAN Environment System Map (ASPEN) — From 700+ sources to a decision-ready pathway portfolio
Client: The Asia Foundation (ASEAN)
Evidence backbone → system picture → prioritized pathways → enabling conditions + “what to validate next”.
ASEAN Environment System Map (ASPEN) — From 700+ sources to a decision-ready pathway portfolio
Client: The Asia Foundation (ASEAN)
Evidence backbone → system picture → prioritized pathways → enabling conditions + “what to validate next”.
What went in
- 700+ sources spanning environment and connected domains
- A practical need: move beyond fragmented evidence toward a coherent picture that supports prioritization and coordination.
What came out
- An evidence-backed system map (the “shared picture”)
- A prioritized pathway portfolio (the “so what”)
- Briefing-ready supporting assets, including a clear agenda of what to validate next (where evidence is strong, mixed, or missing)
What we did (in plain language)
- Converted text into structured “what influences what” relationship candidates with provenance (so claims can be checked later)
- Used machine reading to handle scale, then reviewed and refined the structure through human-in-the-loop validation
- Translated the system picture into a curated set of pathways: “if we act here, then…” chains with dependencies, risks, and trade-offs.
Why it’s different
Most mapping efforts either stay small, or they scale up and become hard to interrogate. This work demonstrates scale + traceability: comprehensive processing across hundreds of sources while preserving a checkable evidence trail and a practical pathway portfolio.
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