Over the past ten years, United Kingdom (UK)’s department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has adopted systematic approach to improve how it sources and uses evidence to inform policy making. It has implemented two five-year strategy processes that ensured the resources it invested were better directed towards both long and short-term policy goals. They also helped to improve the transparency of the debates around evidence for environmental policy making. Louise Shaxson from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) explained how the DEFRA has been implementing efforts in developing a more systematic way of doing evidence-based policy making in their policy processes.