Signed by President Trump on January 14, 2019, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policy Making Act of 2018 (“Evidence Act”), as implemented by the Department of Commerce, requires rigorous statistical evaluation methods to scrutinize the effectiveness of our programs and operations, to be efficient with taxpayer resources and to make our data more accessible whenever possible. To aid with these efforts, the Evidence Act requires that each agency designate an Evaluation Officer, Chief Data Officer and Statistical Official.  In the Department of Commerce, these positions report to the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs in the Office of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs (OUSEA).

The Evaluation Officer

The Evaluation Officer, and supporting staff, are responsible for the Departmental assessments of the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, and independence of their statistics, evaluation, research, and analysis efforts. The assessment is intended to help agencies measure their ability and infrastructure to carry out evidence-building activities like foundational fact finding, performance measurement, policy analysis, and program evaluation. Additionally, the officer is responsible for coordinating and releasing a Departmental Learning Agenda. The Learning Agenda identifies, prioritizes, and establishes strategies to develop evidence to answer important short- and long-term questions including strategic questions about how the agency meets its mission and operational questions.  These documents are developed as part of the Departmental strategic planning process. Also, the officer leads the development of an Annual Evaluation Plan that lists the priority evaluations that will be conducted primarily within a fiscal year and are funded in the budget for that year. Finally, the Evaluation Officer is responsible for overseeing the completion of the agency’s Evidence Submission which the Department is required to provide as a part of their budget submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Shawn Klimek serves as the Department’s Evaluation Officer.

Natasha Murray serves as the Department's Deputy Evaluation Officer.

The Commerce Evaluation Officer and Deputy Evaluation Officer work extensively with a community of bureau-designated Evaluation Leads throughout the Department of Commerce. These Evaluation Leads serve as champions for instilling a culture of evidence-based decision-making and evaluation within their bureau, as well as sharing their knowledge, expertise and experience through the Evaluation Officer led community of practice.  Links to published works from bureaus or offices are published under the tag: Evaluation.

Program Evaluation

In addition to compliance with the Evidence Act, the Evaluation Officer also promotes:

Adherence to Department Standards - Evidence-building activities and evaluations must be actionable and timely, addressing questions that align with Department priorities, use the most appropriate design and methods, be objective, transparent and conducted with the highest ethical standards.

Data for Evaluation – Evaluators and analysts should use existing administrative and statistical data for their analysis whenever feasible, consistent with applicable laws and regulations. The Evaluation Officer will identify impediments to Commerce staff using data to develop evidence and will work with the Chief Data Officer and the Statistical Official to improve access and usability of data.

Reporting – The Deputy Secretary will receive a biannual report from the Department Evaluation Officer on compliance with Department Administrative Order 216-21: Program Evaluation.

Evidence Act Deliverables

Evidence Submission

The Evaluation Officer is responsible for overseeing the completion of the Evidence Submission, part of the Departmental budget submission; however, OMB expects offices responsible for budget, policy analysis and development, programs, management and operations, evaluation, performance, statistics, and regulations to collaborate in the development of the proposals identified in the Evidence Submission. This includes coordination among the Evaluation Officer, Statistical Official, Performance Improvement Officer, and Chief Data Officer to develop proposals, including proposals that advance their respective functions. Although the Evaluation Officer should lead agency coordination, the directors of Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau are the technical leads on the Improve Secure Access section, program offices responsible for foreign assistance programs will be key partners on the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act (FATAA) section, and the Chief Data Officer is the technical lead on the Open Data section.

Annual Evaluation Plans

The Evidence Act requires the agency Evaluation Officers to coordinate the development of an Annual Evaluation Plan that is published concurrently with the agency's Annual Performance Plan and the annual budget. The Annual Evaluation Plan describes significant evaluations and related information for the subsequent fiscal year. The FY 2026 Annual Evaluation Plan is currently being developed and will be published along with the budget.  The FY 2027 Annual Evaluation Plan will start being developed in mid-May, when the Evaluation Officer issues annual instructions on the process, templates, and schedule, as part of the budget process with a complete draft due to OMB with the President’s Budget in early September.

FY 2026 Department of Commerce Evaluation Plan, Coming Soon

FY 2025 Department of Commerce Evaluation Plan 

Learning Agenda

The Department’s Learning Agenda is a companion document to the Strategic Plan. It details evidence and evaluations that will be developed to facilitate achieving the Department’s Strategic Objectives. The Learning Agenda, which is highly aligned with the new Department strategic goals and objectives, includes:

• Policy-relevant questions that the agency intends to answer to support policymaking.
• Data that the agency intends to collect, use, or acquire to facilitate research on policy-relevant questions.
• Methods and analytical approaches that may be used to develop evidence to support policymaking.
• Challenges to develop evidence, including any statutory or other restrictions to accessing relevant data.

Capacity Assessment for Statistics, Research, Evaluation, and Other Analysis

The Capacity Assessment is the third document in the series that the Evaluation Officer is responsible for. It reports on the Department’s resources to carry out the Learning Agenda. The Capacity Assessment reviews and appraises the statistics, evaluation, research, and analysis capabilities of the Department. Bureau evaluation resources are reviewed to assess if they meet requirements for achieving quality, rigor, and relevance for their evidence and evaluation projects. The FY 2026-2030 Capacity Assessment is being developed in three project phases: review of existing documents related to evidence-building and evaluation activities, the FY 2025 Department of Commerce Survey of Evidence-Building Capacity and bureau-level focus groups.  The Capacity Assessment will be published with the FY 2027 President’s Budget.

FY 2026-2030 Capacity Assessment for Statistics, Research, Evaluation, and Other Analysis, under development

FY 2022-2026 Capacity Assessment for Statistics, Research, Evaluation, and Other Analysis