Special session: evaluating design enabled innovations – towards a common impact evaluation methodology

In this lunchtime talk, which was also the Tavistock Institute’s contribution to the Designscapes un-conference programme celebrating the key achievements of this four-year project, we share some key findings from the Designscapes evaluation and introduce the key pillars of the common impact evaluation methodology we designed.

There’s a growing interest in the role design thinking and methods can play to help us find innovative solutions to address the many complex problems our societies, economies and environment face. Yet, with evaluation not very much embedded in this new field, little is known about whether design enabled social innovations ‘work’ and what the specific value-added of design is for their development and scaling.

Against this background, Designscapes (funded by the Horizon 2020 programme) aimed to encourage the use of design methods and thinking in the creation and scaling of social innovations by providing funding and capacity building to 100 pilot projects in nearly 60 cities in 22 European countries. Evaluation was an integral part of Designscapes. It aimed on the one hand to show the difference Designscapes activities made and based on the experience of evaluating design enabled innovation develop an impact evaluation methodology which can be applied across projects, organisations, sectors and administrative levels.

Recording of the talk

Q&A:

Speakers:

Dr. Kerstin Junge

As an evaluator, I am an expert in theory-based evaluations, seeing evaluation primarily as an opportunity to learn – from implementation and sound evidence. I enjoy working with people doing new things to solve a challenge at any scale, collaborating with others to find new solutions to the organisational or social challenges of our time. Often these are experimental, emergent, with little or no evidence base...

Dr Joe Cullen

Dr Joe Cullen is Principal Associate of the Tavistock Institute and was previously its Academic Dean. As a senior member of the Tavistock Institute staff, Dr Cullen has extensive experience in developing and applying innovative research, consultancy and evaluation approaches and methods, working with international organisations (WHO, European Commission) Government Departments (for example, in the UK, Department of Health, Department for Education and Skills, Home Office, Department...