Qual+Quant=? Integrating the Social with the Technical in a Regulatory Evidence Base

The question of what constitutes "evidence" in evidence-based decision-making is a growing area of scholarly debate. Even in the social sciences - where qualitative methods are common currency - it is possible to find scholars who will assert the value of a nuanced, contextual account while at the same time suggesting it is a \´less valid\´ form of evidence than quantified, scientific data. Nonetheless, the value of qualitative, socially-situated evidence is appreciated in powerful circles: witness the growing demand for public input into evidence-based regulatory decision-making, especially in contested areas of science and technology. In this paper, the author presents the early stages of a project to broaden a specific regulatory evidence base. The author briefly outlines the academic literature informing this project, with reference to some \´best practice\´ examples of how this tension has been negotiated internationally in risk regulation regimes. Then, referring to the participant-observation at Canada\´s health products and food branch, the author describes this project\´s strategy in addressing the challenges of establishing a hybrid socio-technical model of evidence within existing institutional practices reliant on quantitative measures of risk.