In this Centre for Development Impact (CDI) seminar we will launch the Special Issue in the European Journal of Development Research on Evaluating Research for Development: Innovation to Navigate Complexity.
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Large publicly funded programmes of research continue to receive increased investment as interventions aiming to produce impact for the world’s poorest and most marginalized populations. With increased investment comes an opportunity to deepen how these hybrid research for development (R4D) programmes contribute to complex processes of societal change and in the interest of whom.
Embracing a co-produced view of impact as emerging along uncertain causal pathways, often without predefined outcomes, calls for innovation in the use of complexity-aware approaches to evaluation. The special issue we will launch through this seminar illustrates how the R4D evaluation field is maturing through the experiences of a growing and diverse group of researchers and evaluators as they shift away from narrow accountability instruments to work with emergent causal pathways.
Contributing authors will reflect on their experiences with methodological innovations in reconciling tensions around: (i) evaluating performance to meet accountability demands while fostering learning for adaptation; (ii) evaluating prospective theories of change while capturing emergent change; (iii) evaluating internal relational dimensions while measuring external development outcomes; (iv) evaluating across scales: from measuring local level end impact to understanding contributions to systems level change.
Chair
Dr Mieke Snijder (Centre for Development Impact – IDS)
Speakers
Arlene Gonzales, Asian Institute of Technology
Dr Carren Duffy, University of Cape Town
Genowefa Blundo-Canto, CIRAD – UMR Innovation
Dr Evelyn Pauls, Center for Women, Peace and Security – London School of Economics
Dr Marina Apgar, Centre for Development Impact, IDS
Discussant
Prasanna Saligram, George Institute in India
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