Westminster Foundation for Democracy organized a two-days workshop in Lahore (from 10-12th February) for the researchers from both Federal and Provincial Assemblies’ (Balochistan, KPK, Sindh, and Punjab) on the ‘the Importance of Research and Data for Evidence-based Legislation.’ Aim of this workshop was to comprehend the federal and provincial level research practices in detail and; to layout the problems researchers generally face in order to design possible solutions for it. On 1st day of the training program three sessions were conducted by subject specialist on ‘the Importance of Research and Data for Evidence-based Research in Parliament’, second session was on ‘the Parliamentary Research in Digital Era’ and in last session participants were briefed about the ‘Case Study of Climate Change Committee on Developing Pool of Experts.’
In first two sessions, participants discussed the key aspects to study any of the researcher-based publication, along with the tips and tricks to prepare a research paper in the short span of time. Likewise, few books and writing samples were considered as an example to identify the differences between a preface, prologue, and executive summary. Third and last session of the workshop revolved around the case study of Standing Committee on Climate to seek guidance from the feedback of assemblies’ research team. The case study was concluded with the recommendation and round table discussion on creating a linkage amongst the parliamentarians, academia, and the researchers. Apart from this, all the researchers put forward their queries and challenges they usually face while conducting research. The Q/A session assisted in devising practically implementable solutions for the near future.