Given continuing uncertainties due to the pandemic, the format of the Conference will be part online and part in-person. Should the environment for large meetings become restricted, we will flex to a fully online conference:
Tuesday, May 24th – online – sessions around abstracts
Wednesday, May 25th – in-person – half day
Thursday, May 26th – in-person – full day
Many interrelated and complex forces shape our lives. From local and national issues which affect our day-to-day, such as employment, infrastructure, healthcare, and regional inequities across the country, to those global challenges which we face collectively, such as the climate crisis and pandemics. Decisions need to be made and action taken at an increasing pace.
The practice of evaluation, and the broad, diverse evaluation community, has a role to play in informing the responses to these challenges. We need to be adaptable and nimble. We need to navigate the political dimension of using evidence and evaluation in decision-making. The evidence we use needs to be responsive to the environments in which we work, building on new technologies and possibilities as they arise. Evaluative practice needs to be authentic and robust enough to keep relevant as we address the processes and challenges of rapid change. We need to see when change requires adjustment or adaptation or when it is at the level of transformation.
The UK Evaluation Society Conference 2022 will build on some of these debates and discussions to explore the politics, contexts, capabilities, theories and data the evaluation community uses to respond to these challenges and interrogate what further we can do to inform and encourage evidence-based decision making, in both local and global contexts, on these fast-moving, complex issues.