UK EVALUATION SOCIETY CONFERENCE - extended

ukes

Evaluation for results: What counts? Who stands to gain? How is it done?

16 March 2012

The Macdonald Hotel, Birmingham

The UK Evaluation Society (UKES) conferences address leading issues of the day in programme and policy evaluation. The 2012 Annual Conference will address the current drive towards evaluation focused on results- frequently linked to "Payment by Results" and what, in international development and elsewhere, is called "Results-Based Management".

Evaluators and those who commission evaluations who advocate a focus on results reflect a legitimate concern with the productivity and efficieny of programmes. They point out that programmes should be held to account to accomplish what they were desgned to do and what funds, often public, have been allocated for.

Others argue that an over-emphasis on measuring a programme's results neglects important questions of how results are generated in a context, whether results capture the real quality and accomplishments of a programme, and how those results may reflect the values and ambitions of all programme stakeholders. They remind us of secondary effects and "unintended benefits" of programmes that may not be readily captured by results.

Against this background conference participants are invited to propose discussions, seminar presentations, etc. Amongst the proposed topics we can find:

  • How do we define a valid "result" and whose results get counted?
  • How do we best measure a results- including taking account of counterfactuals?
  • How do we understand where results come from, what significance they have and whether they can be replicated- i.e. what is the relation between a result and context?
  • Where do benchmarks come from to measure results achievement?, etc.

The conference will be preceded on 15 March 2012 with a choice of workshops on specialist topics.

For further details, visit the UKES website http://www.evaluation.org.uk