aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Adrian Field (Dovetail), Julian King (Julian King and Associates), Kate McKegg (The Knowledge Institute)

How do project innovations create changes in wider organisational systems and practice? This short paper will discuss our learning from evaluating three dynamic road safety projects working within an innovation umbrella programme.

This session will highlight the challenges and opportunities for taking innovation to scale, reflecting on our learning from theoretical approaches outside evaluation that offer compelling new windows for evaluator’s understanding of impact and change. Grounded in real-world application of three innovative road safety projects, the paper will present the inter-weaving of socio-technical systems theory, developmental evaluation, rubrics, and learning from the innovation literature.

These approaches were used, along with their practical application through rubrics and multiple data collection methods, to explore the extent to which the projects fostered innovation that translated into sustained business operations.

This paper will provide useful ideas and reflections for participants including how collaboratively developed evaluation rubrics were used to define and assess levels and dimensions of system change that each project could reflect against, through a developmental process of engagement and reflection.

We will also reflect on the contribution that collaborative partnerships, communities of practice, people-centred approaches, and reframing risk offer to evaluation practitioners as avenues for exploring the translation of innovation to system change. Socio-technical systems theory will be provided as a lens for understanding the potential for local or niche innovations to lever changes in wider systems.

The session will conclude with an exploration of the role of evaluation in capturing and catalysing innovation.