State of Evaluation
A huge part of the work I do is evaluation. Across funders and schemes, in and out of community, local and national organisations and universities, it is a standalone specialism as well as the thread running through my practice in arts, culture, heritage and place.
So - I welcomed the @UK Evaluation Society's State of Evaluation report, produced with @Ipsos and drawn from more than 360 of us working in and around the field. It is the first systematic look of its kind at who evaluators are, how we work, and what stands in our way.
Reading it from my corner of the field, five findings things stood out:
Evaluation is commissioned in volume, yet hardly ever used to inform a decision.
What counts as evidence, and the pressure to reduce cultural value to economic proxies.
Evaluation is too often done to communities rather than with them.
The pluralism that is the field's strength is being quietly squeezed.
Professional identity, and the open question of professionalisation.
Across next week I am going to post on each. Starting Monday with the one the report itself is most worried about: the gap between commissioning evaluation and actually using it.
Report here: https://evaluation.org.uk/state-of-evaluatation-2026-with-ipsos/
#StateOfEvaluation #Evaluation #ArtsCultureHeritage #Placemaking