This year's UKES Conference takes as its theme the challenges we face in effectively engaging with and meeting the evolving needs of a multiplicity of stakeholders. Stakeholders can include commissioners, evaluators, co-evaluators, participants, beneficiaries or those who may be put at risk by evaluation processes and findings; in effect all those who have a stake in, or interest in, the particular programme being evaluated. These stakeholders differ in terms of the influence theycan exert over evaluation design, capacity to engage with the evaluation, or ability to access and utilise findings.

Stakeholders may have contrasting views on what evaluation should achieve and how it should be carried out. Priorities and perspectives are not fixed over time. Evaluation is situated in a dynamic environment characterised by policy change, shifting institutional structures and new thinking from both within and outside the evaluation community.

The conference streams explore changing stakeholder needs and expectations from a number of angles – from the core issue of effective engagement in the evaluation process, to considering the needs of specific stakeholder groups, the emerging priorities of stakeholders such as the sustainable development agenda and the challenge of involving multiple stakeholders.