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Format of conference |
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The conference includes a number of keynote speakers and a series of panels and forums. There are also parallel sessions for which evaluators from across the evaluation community have submitted papers under the following themes. |
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| Theme 1: Evaluating Economic Impact | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This theme will explore techniques available to evaluate economic impact and to analyse costs and benefits. This will be the subject matter of some of our keynote speakers and panels. It will explore the options available to evaluators where it is not appropriate to apply more traditional methods of cost benefit analysis and will look afresh at the debates around causality. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Theme 2: Evaluating Social Impacts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Evaluators are increasingly tasked to demonstrate evidence of social impact in their commissions against indicators which may include well being, cohesion, networks, engagement and personal development. This theme will promote exploration of the benefits of evaluating such impact on individuals, communities and other defined social groupings, as well as the challenges and ethics of measurement and subsequent delivery of a robust evidence base. We wish to invite discussion regarding applied methodologies, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, and ways in which the data can be effectively analysed and presented for most value. The relative strengths and weaknesses of these approaches when utilised in different contexts will be examined. This theme will also open up discussion of how the evaluation findings are then used by commissioners to drive design and delivery of interventions, with associated ethical and political debate. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Theme 3: Evaluating Health Impact | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This theme wishes to explore how successful (or not) approaches have been in addressing the challenges of measuring and assessing health impacts. This may include examples from a wide range of contexts and different spheres of health including public health, patient care, social policy, mental health and well-being. Examples may range from assessing specific interventions to wider policy initiatives. We wish to invite discussion around the policy context, methodological challenges and ethical issues. The theme will explore how evaluation impacts on policy and practice and improving the health and well being of patients, communities and our wider society. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Theme 4: Evaluating Cultural Impact | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Organisations and individuals delivering arts and cultural activity are striving progressively more towards demonstrating the impact of their activity, particularly in the context of pressured budgets/funding and in an age of greater service commissioning. There is evidence of evaluation having been embedded in practice, with most frequent focus on the context of process (for example, quality of delivery) and audience development (for example, demonstrating the value of the experience for participants and/or audiences). Given the economic climate, there is evidently increasing emphasis on demonstrating economic impacts (for example, the creation of jobs, income generated, volunteer hours) and this stream will promote debate on how different impacts can be measured effectively in order to demonstrate the value of the whole. By discussing the application of different methodologies, the theme will allow exploration of the delivery of holistic impact evaluation within constraints of driving agendas. This will also question the use of evaluation findings by commissioners for advocacy and any associated bias that this may promote. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Theme 5: Evaluating Environmental Impact | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The financial crisis highlights the systemic risks associated with our increasingly interconnected world. But finance is only one of the dimensions of the current predicament. Climate change, shrinking biodiversity, chemicals, water pollution and land degradation pose even more insidious threats to the sustainability of livelihoods on our crowded planet. This strand of the conference will identify the changes in evaluation concepts, methods and practices needed to measure the environmental impact and sustainability of public policy decisions. Given an operating context characterized by complexity and by looming threats that do not respect national boundaries how should environmental risks and uncertainties associated with public policies be assessed? Are current evaluation models focusing on the mitigation of environmental risks and adaptation to environmental trends created by contemporary economic management models? What evaluation coalitions and competencies are called for to bring together the diverse disciplinary skills needed to evaluate environmental impacts of public policies and programs? This theme will also discuss how evaluation findings are used in designing interventions to minimise environmental impact and increase sustainability. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Theme 6: Impact of Evaluation on Policy and Practice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This theme will explore how evaluation impacts on policy and practice and how this impact can be measured or assessed. It will take both a theoretical and a practical look at the circumstances under which evaluation does and doesn't influence policy and practice. We want to explore the constraining and the enabling factors, looking at examples of evaluations which have and have not had an impact on policy-makers and practitioners, and looking at the models or theory that help to explain these differences. We also want to explore how the impact of evaluation on policy and practice can itself be evaluated. Evaluation never works in isolation - it will always be one of a number of factors that lead to policy and practice change. So how can we know when an evaluation has made a difference? How can we understand its impact amid other drivers of change - political, practitioner, social, economic and democratic? What methods and tools can be used, and where have they been used effectively? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Conference administration | ||
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