CECAN recently guest edited a special issue of the leading evaluation journal ‘Evaluation’. The issue, written by members of CECAN and some of its collaborators, aims to bring together a set of ideas and methods for handling complexity in evaluation based on extensive practical experience in addressing these issues, from a research perspective, in UK central government evaluation. Some of these ideas and methods are novel, some are more established in research or theory. None, however, are widely applied in evaluation practice and that is key to the contribution the issue makes.
CECAN values innovation in practice equally to methodological and conceptual innovation. This is reflected in the content of this issue which aims to render the ideas and methods of complexity-appropriate evaluation as practical, actionable, and rigorous. We are therefore pleased that the authors include many evaluation practitioners as well as academics.
The special issue can be found here.