In his opening editorial, Professor Murray Saunders, one of the co-founders of the UK Evaluation Society, reflects on the richness and diversity of contemporary evaluative practice. He highlights a distinctly UK perspective — one that values nuance over uniformity, embraces multiple approaches to quality, and celebrates the creativity and complexity that characterise the field today.
This edition opens with our prize winner contributions which build on the posters which were presented at the conference. Andrew Fletcher, Sonia Dalkin and Angela Bate reflect on the positioning of economic considerations within a realist evaluative framework. Building on a growing recognition that economic evaluation is often not integrated within other evaluative approaches, they argue for its inclusion within a realist stance for a more complete depiction of the value attributed to an intervention or policy.
To demonstrate this position, they outline the lessons from their Realist Economic Evaluation Methods project in which they aim to provide guidance for the incorporation and integration of economic and realist approaches in social policy sectors.
Hannah Leach outlines an approach to capture the effects of the work of Marie Curie of its care and support work with a terminal illness and those involved in their care. Hannah uses the formulation and use of ‘I’ statements which capture the difference Marie Curie makes to these stakeholders. Interestingly, Hannah includes a personal reflection of evaluating within this sector which suggests that the positioning of evaluative work is experienced by her in a different way to previous evaluations in the academic sector foregrounding its potentially direct use value to those in receipt of the work of the organisation which for her was more meaningful.
Nick Moore and Georgia Plank offer valuable insight on the positioning of AI in the evaluative process. What is striking about their piece is that they take an optimistic yet realistic stance in which familiar dimensions of evaluative practice are identified with a clear indication of how AI might contribute. Using real time evaluations, they suggest that the contribution of AI is not simply a matter of increasing efficiency and saving time (although that is certainly an outcome they have experienced) but substantive contributions in the quality and insight of analysis were observed. Alongside these dimensions were, perhaps, unanticipated gains in the evaluative process associated with how team members worked together involving nuanced shifts on what they were able to emphasise and focus upon together.
Stella Capuano and Susan Mackay provide a distinctive reminder of the complexities and pitfalls which are embedded in public policy interventions. They suggest that although social policy interventions are usually intended to influence behaviour, well-being and yield longer term outcomes, they are undertaken within constrained environments in terms of ethics, time and situatedness. They argue that this tension provides a rich vein for analysis in the important areas of the development and use of robust Theories of Change, the identification and attribution of outcomes to interventions and the establishment of the existence (or not) if longer-term effects. Each if these challenges are unpacked and discussed in ways which can inform and develop more nuanced evaluative practice.
Naomie Clemons provides a welcome consideration often heard call for ‘high quality’ evaluations and discusses what this might mean in practice, which she suggests, is far from clear and certainly contested. The idea of ‘good enough’ evaluations becomes pertinent in this context, particularly when contemplating the constraints of political demands, resource constraints and organisational cultures. Drawing on her recent research and existing literature, Naomie points to the variability with which high quality is understand and enacted by ’real world’ actors in the sites of evaluation. Inevitably, she argues, quality considerations are constructed differently, with different emphases by key stakeholders. So evaluators, commissioners, users and policy makers will all have nuanced and sometimes stark differences in the way in which quality might be judged. She outlines how technical, and questions of rigour are mediated or even defined by cultural, organisational and conceptual situatedness. Following this logic, she suggests, there is an important agenda to surface, acknowledge and foreground these differences which will, in turn, help decide what quality might mean in practice.
Rupal Anand and Michelle Kaufman point to the way evaluative practice might help as a bridging mechanism toward addressing issues of social inequality. However, evaluation might require a responsive and adaptive stance to enable this to happen. They illustrate this possibility by referencing their work in GambleAware in which they argue for more connection or interaction with broader systemic characteristics of the context. In this scenario, potentially evaluation becomes more than a mechanism to ensure accountability. They argue that evaluations should move beyond limiting an evaluation to quantifiable measurements and include a focus on how interventions interact with broader social systems, thereby surfacing hidden inequities, challenging assumptions, and driving systemic change. They suggest that without this perspective, good programs risk being misinterpreted as failures when, actually, they highlight barriers that might require deeper structural change.
Tracy Wond offers an analysis which alerts us to the ‘multi personality’ condition which often typifies the role and positioning of the evaluator. Of course, this is a metaphor for the situation in which evaluators find themselves and does not suggest a disorder but rather an inherent and embedded characteristic of evaluative practice. She contrasts the illusion that evaluation is somehow above the ebb and flow of positional issues associated with the evaluation landscape (inhabited by competing interests, shifting expectations and methodological challenge) with the realities of continuously negotiated relationships. She depicts these mediations and identities and offers us practical strategies to maintain credibility and integrity.
Finally, we have a piece by Rick Davies who undertook an interesting experiment at the May 2025 UK Evaluation Society conference. His focus was on generating alternative futures for the field of evaluative practice using the considerations of keynotes and presenters as a resource. He describes the use of a web application called ParEvo which enabled the generation of multiple versions of possible futures. While this was interesting in itself as a kind of modified Delphi study, the truncated ParEvo output was analysed using AI (illustrating points raised by Nick Moore and Georgia Plank on the contribution AI can make to the quality of insight within evaluative practice) hence the collective wisdom of participants at the conference meets the potential power of AI generated categorisation and contribute to sense making. While a truncated version of the process, Rick’s ‘trial’ suggests that the broad approach has considerable potential and will be undertaken again at the next conference.
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A huge thank you to all our Evaluative Practice contributors for sharing their insights, experiences and examples from across the evaluation community — your work continues to spark learning and reflection across the field.
We welcome contributions from both members and non-members who want to share their ideas, experiences or reflections on evaluation. To discuss a potential piece or submit a short abstract for consideration, please email hello@evaluation.org.uk with the subject line ‘Att. Editor – Evaluative Practice’.