Leading the Evolving Profession theme at the UK Evaluation Society conference 2027

Call for abstracts: UK Evaluation Society conference 2027, Evaluation Frontiers and Futures, London, 18 to 20 May.

The call is now open and I'm helping shape the programme as one of the theme leads. Four themes:

Innovating Practice: new methodologies, AI and emerging technologies, relational and participatory approaches.

Everyone in the Place: joined-up evaluation under devolved government, and evaluation's role in driving local change.

Evolving Profession: the skills, capabilities and pathways for the people who commission, deliver and use evaluation.

Open Frontier: speculative, cross-cutting and boundary-pushing contributions that advance evaluation.

Mine is Evolving Profession, and it starts from a simple question: how do the people who commission, deliver and use evaluation actually develop their practice? Skills in this field are so often built project by project, on the job, without much scaffolding around them. So what does good development look like when your evaluation practice sits inside an arts organisation, a council or a heritage body rather than an evaluation firm? What does the toolkit need to hold that it doesn't yet? And what do commissioners need to know to be good clients of evaluation, not just buyers of it? It follows on from the reflections on the state of evaluation I've been sharing here over recent months, and it's where I think some of the most honest conversations in the field need to happen.

The portal opens very soon. Deadline is 31 October 2026. Themes and full guidance are here so you can start developing your idea: https://www.ukeval.co.uk/abstracts

#CallForPapers #CallForAbstracts #Conference #Evaluation #UKES2027 #EvaluationFrontiersAndFutures #EvolvingProfession #IndependentConsultants