Integrating Anticipatory Governance and Evidence-Informed Policymaking in Frameworks for Governance in European States

Anticipatory governance is regarded as an important governance approach that promotes strategic foresight and future-oriented policymaking under conditions of uncertainty. Following recent crises, European states continue to face challenges in bridging the gap between evidence and policymaking and in translating scientific knowledge into policy responses. This highlights the need to connect the anticipatory governance approach with evidence-informed policymaking to support more proactive, systematic, and informed policy processes. The aim of this research is to identify the strategic, legal, and institutional elements of governance frameworks that support the integration of anticipatory governance and evidence-informed policymaking in European states. The study compares Estonia, Lithuania, and Spain, three countries that have recently established dedicated science-for-policy structures, including science and innovation adviser roles within governmental institutions. A directed qualitative content analysis of selected strategic documents, legal acts, and institutional policy documents was conducted using deductively derived analytical categories. This was complemented by a quantitative keyword frequency analysis of selected studies of national science-for-policy ecosystems. The findings reveal both shared and country-specific elements that may support strategic foresight, evidence use, knowledge brokerage, stakeholder engagement, and collaboration between governmental and scientific communities. The study contributes a comparative analytical framework for examining how anticipatory governance and evidence-informed policymaking may be institutionally connected across different national policy ecosystems.