CPD Courses

CECAN Seminar with Zenda Ofir

CECAN Seminar with Zenda Ofir

We were thrilled to welcome Zenda Ofir to give a CECAN seminar in February ‘How evaluation in the SDG era can mislead, and what to do about it.’

Looking Through a Glass Darkly: Public Goods and Agricultural Policy

Looking Through a Glass Darkly: Public Goods and Agricultural Policy

This blogpost highlights some of the points raised in a policy brief, New Directions: A public goods approach to agricultural policy post-Brexit. Following the Brexit referendum, the mantra “public monies for public goods” has been increasingly heard, especially in relation to agricultural and environmental policy.

CECAN Seminar: Mixed Methods Evaluation, Using QCA and NVIVO

CECAN Seminar: Mixed Methods Evaluation, Using QCA and NVIVO

In development studies, one wants an evaluation team to face up to the challenge of combining surveys with semi-structured interview data.  In this seminar I explain and show how these linkages are made with concrete data about villages in Bangladesh and India.

Dynamic Pattern Synthesis for Modeling Complex Systems. An Interview with Phil Haynes

Dynamic Pattern Synthesis for Modeling Complex Systems. An Interview with Phil Haynes

Phil Haynes is Professor of Public Policy and researches and teaches public policy and management, as applied to a variety of contemporary circumstances. His research focuses on the application of complex systems theory, often using applied statistical methods. His research has been funded by the ESRC and the government and voluntary sector.

Finding The Common Ground

Finding The Common Ground

Along with several lead and co-authors, as part of a British Ecological Society Agricultural Ecology Group convened workshop held in December 2017, a report has been produced entitled “Finding the Common Ground”, which sets out an ecological perspective on how future agricultural policy should develop as a consequence, and in relation to, Brexit.

Carillion May Have Collapsed, But Public-Private Partnerships Can Be So Much More…

Carillion May Have Collapsed, But Public-Private Partnerships Can Be So Much More…

Last month, Carillion, one of the largest companies in the UK which regularly entered into contracts with government to deliver public infrastructure and services, went into liquidation. Since then, public-private partnerships (PPP), and their pantomime villain superstars – private finance initiatives (PFI) – have received an unprecedented level of criticism. The Guardian Opinion section – and my love-hate relationship with it – has gone into overdrive!

Teaching Evaluation of Complex Policy and Programmes

Teaching Evaluation of Complex Policy and Programmes

CECAN develops, tests and enhances methods to deal with complexity in policy evaluation, trying to advance research, policy and evaluation practice. To ensure that these methods will influence an ever widening audience, CECAN has now launched a syllabus for building capacity and supporting the application of complexity sensitive evaluation nationally and internationally.

Putting Values Back in Evaluation

Putting Values Back in Evaluation

Policy evaluation is about assessing the value of policies, but too little attention, it seems to me, is paid to the meaning of “value” in all this.  The English word “value”, of course, has multiple meanings that include numerical (e.g. “a parameter value”), economic (e.g. “good value”) and ethical (e.g. “a value judgment”). 

BEIS Energy Trilemma

BEIS Energy Trilemma

The aim of the case study was to explore, via CECAN’s approach to participatory systems mapping, the energy trilemma policy landscape. Specifically, it was to map relevant policies, their interaction, context, and impact on the trilemma, and to highlight: the impacts of policies on the three ‘legs’ of the trilemma; potential common and/or contradictory aims and mechanisms amongst policies; and uncertainty and evidence gaps.

Building Collaborative Narratives and Developing Trust in Policy and its Evaluation

Building Collaborative Narratives and Developing Trust in Policy and its Evaluation

On the 23rd and 24th November 2017 members of the CECAN team, Pete Barbrook-Johnson, Clare Twigger-Ross and myself attended the EEEN conference in the beautiful surroundings of the Royal Society in Edinburgh. Facilitated by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), civil servants from environment agencies, consultants, practitioners and academics came together to share experiences and ideas for the future of environmental policy evaluation.

Energy Security Policy Evaluation Workshop at BEIS

Energy Security Policy Evaluation Workshop at BEIS

We were delighted to run a successful policy evaluation workshop last week with policy teams and analysts working on energy security and the wider energy ‘trilemma’ (decarbonisation, prices, and security), at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

CECAN Webinar – The benefits and challenges of conducting research with impact ‘built in’: reflections and findings from an evaluation of Electronic Monitoring with the Ministry of Justice, with Ian Brunton-Smith. 23 Jun, 1 - 2pm BST. Includes live Q&A! Register free: www.cecan.ac.uk/events/cecan...

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— CECAN (@cecan.bsky.social) April 9, 2025 at 12:22 PM

*New Resource* - 'Guidance on using large language models to extract cause-and-effect pairs from texts for systems mapping', written by Jordan White and Pete Barbrook-Johnson. See: www.cecan.ac.uk/resources/to...

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— CECAN (@cecan.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 2:53 PM