Welcome - Evaluation (Mesh-Literature)

Guides & Tools: LBG Open Innovation in Science Center Impact Model and Instruments

Developed by the LBG Open Innovation in Science Center present a toolkit that can be used respectively to plan and to collect feedback around the effects of involvement and engagement initiatives in research projects.   

Literature: Planning for the social and economic impacts emerging from school-university engagement with research

In this article from the Journal of Science Communication (2015) the authors reflect on their work with teachers and students at a local school in Milton Keynes in the UK. They propose a flexible and adaptive metric to support all stakeholders with planning school engagement.

Literature: Developing a finer grained analysis of research impact: Can we assess the wider effects of public engagement?

This article, published with a creative commons licence on the LSE Impact Blog, suggests a more comprehensive and balanced approach for the evaluation of public engagement, drawing on evaluation criteria commonly used in aid evaluation.

Ecological Validity and the Study of Publics: The Case for Organic Public Engagement Methods

Summary of academic paper critiquing experimental approaches to public engagement advocating instead an 'organic engagement' approach with 'ecological validation' which explores the context and mechanisms in which public's deliberations and opinions are formed. The paper is not open access however a comprehensive summary is given here. 

Community Health Decision-Making: The Power of Focus Groups in Rural Communities

This study, which took place in the U.S, may be of interest to Mesh readers interested in the power of 'community voice' on decision-making in health policy and research.  

Article: Community Engagement for the Rapid Elimination of Malaria: the Case of Kayin State, Myanmar

This article outlines Community Engagement efforts linked to a Targeted Malaria Elimination (TME) project in four Kayin State villages, in Myanmar where there is a real threat from the spread of drug resistant parasites. The Community Engagement programme was aimed at promoting population uptake and adherence to Mass drug administrations (MDA) in the region.

Literature: Realist Evaluation: Key Books

Introduction to two influential introductory texts on Realist Evaluation: Realistic Evaluation and The Science of Evaluation: a realist manifesto. Realist evaluation can be used to effectively evaluate community engagement activities.

Published Literature: Future Connect: a review of social networking today, tomorrow and beyond, and the challenge or HIV Communicators

An extensive introduction to the growing and changing role of social media in communication with an emphasis on developing country experience.

The Role of Volunteering in Sustainable Development (2015)

This case study acts as an example of using participatory system inquiry and systemic action research to evaluate complex projects.

Literature: Assessing Impact in Dynamic and Complex Environments: Systemic Action Research and Participatory System Inquiry (2014)

Short paper exploring systemic action research and participatory system inquiry as approaches to assessing impact in social programmes and initiatives.

Literature: Who Counts? The power of participatory statistics

An introduction to the book Who Counts? The power of participatory statistics and some of the case studies within it.

Literature: Insight and Exchange: An evaluation of the Wellcome Trust’s Sciart programme

Evaluation report from the Wellcome Trust's Sciart funding programme