On 25 September, Agulhas will host a participatory ‘fishbowl’ session on ‘Determining Our Impact as Evaluators and Researchers – Its Opportunities and Challenges’ at the European Evaluation Society (EES) 2024 conference, along with our partners from The Advocacy Team and PRIA India.
Location: EES Conference, Rimini, Italy
📅 Date: 25 September 2024
⏲ Local time: 5:15pm-6:45pm
Liz Turner, Charlotte Vaillant, Lorriann Robinson and Dr. Kaustuv Bandyopadhyay will share different perspectives from across the research and evaluation ecosystem and invite attendees to join the discussion.
Evaluation firms are typically impact-driven, social change-oriented organisations. However, as we move from one evaluation project to the next, we often do not stop and take stock of how our work has, or has not, contributed to the intended or hoped-for impact.
This session will focus on how evaluators can best make a difference and what we can do to increase the uptake of learning and recommendations. In practice, how well an evaluation lands can be highly context-dependent, regardless of the quality of evidence underpinning findings and learning and how well we formulate the recommendations.
Are we doing enough to assess our own impact? Do we adequately take stock and learn from our experience and apply learning from one evaluation to another? What could we do better and how?
The session will first explore the challenges facing evaluators in achieving better impact, whether through, for example, power dynamics or design. We will then explore with participants good practice on what evaluators can do differently to maximise the impact of evaluations.
We will invite participants to join the discussion and build on the opening comments from the panel. To stimulate a thought-provoking discussion, our panel includes a range of organisations with diverse experiences, across evaluation, research and advocacy.
About the European Evaluation Society Biennial Conference
The world is in a state of polycrisis, facing urgent challenges like environmental degradation, social injustice, and economic instability. These complex issues require new approaches beyond siloed, linear thinking. Collaboration across disciplines, sectors and perspectives is essential to develop innovative and inclusive solutions.
At the EES-2024 Better Together conference, we will explore how collaboration can lead to more effective, transformative evaluation and social change. This event offers a timely opportunity to leverage the diverse experience of the EES community to reframe evaluation and promote positive impact.
This in-person event will take place at the Palacongressi di Rimini Congress Center in Rimini, Italy, from September 23rd to 27th, 2024.
