CO Evaluation Task Force ESRC Policy Fellowship
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Essex
Department Name: Inst for Social and Economic Research
Abstract
Each fellowship will last up to 18 months to cover a three-month inception phase for set up activity, followed by a 6-12-month placement with the host organisation, and concluding with an impact phase lasting up to three months.
Fellows will co-design projects and activities with their host and produce analysis to inform government decision-making across a range of policy priorities. Fellows will also engage across the host organisation, building effective working relationships and supporting wider knowledge exchange with researchers. This will be supported through their embedded role within the host organisation, including line management support.
Fellows will co-design projects and activities with their host and produce analysis to inform government decision-making across a range of policy priorities. Fellows will also engage across the host organisation, building effective working relationships and supporting wider knowledge exchange with researchers. This will be supported through their embedded role within the host organisation, including line management support.
| Description | Identification of research practices - especially research publication practices - in the Cabinet Office. Understanding of government needs from an evaluation registry. |
| Exploitation Route | The Evaluation Registry was nearing completion at the end of the Fellowship. Its development has since been continued. The service has been made available to government departments and made compulsory for use for all "planned, live, and completed Government evaluations". Further development continues, with the intention of developing a public-facing version of the service. |
| Sectors | Government Democracy and Justice |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/guidance/guidance-on-using-the-evaluation-registry |
| Description | I was the primary author of the Cabinet Office's annual statement on research integrity, which established plans for the Cabinet Office to improve several aspects of its research practice. Subsequently, the department appears to be progressing with those plans, as its second annual statement on research integrity (prepared after I left the department) showed substantial increases in the proportion of research that was published. Emerging impact is expected to arise from the project I led to develop an Evaluation Registry for UK government, which once complete is intended to improve the visibility of evaluation evidence and ultimately contribute to them better influencing implementation. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal Economic Policy & public services |
| Description | Development of Evaluation Registry |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | Gathering all government evaluations in the Evaluation Registry improves efficiency as it makes it easier for civil servants to find past, current and planned evaluations that relate to policy and public service delivery areas they are working on. Over time, the Evaluation Registry is also likely to contribute to effective solutions to societal problems. Increasing the visibility of evaluations will increase the likelihood that interventions found to be successful in past evaluations are widely deployed (and that ineffective interventions are modified or stopped, allowing reinvestment in alternatives that might be more successful). Having access to a database of previous evaluations will also support those designing new evaluations to drive forward their practice. |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/guidance/guidance-on-using-the-evaluation-registry |
| Description | Increased research transparency in the Cabinet Office |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | Research conducted by government is a public service and, except when there are reasons such as national security or confidentiality, it should be made available to the public as a public good. Following the clarity that the first annual statement provided, that the Cabinet Office was not generally making its research outputs available, it has subsequently improved substantially in this regard, and many more research outputs have been made available to the public than were previously. Increased publication of research outputs by the Cabinet Office is also likely to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public services as it not only makes the research outputs more visible to the public, but also to civil servants. Due to the nature of civil service careers, many civil servants change roles and departments; research that is accessible via GOV.UK will be more accessible to them than research that has not been published and remains stored somewhere within the department's systems. |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-concordat-to-support-research-integrity-20... |
| Description | UKRI Policy Fellows 2021 network |
| Organisation | Nottingham Trent University |
| Department | Nottingham Business School |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Participated in auto-ethnographic workshop as part of research. Worked with partners on paper development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners listed are those whose contributions to the collaboration have made in-kind contributions through facilitating workshops. Partners from several other institutions have also contributed, including through participation in workshops and paper development. |
| Impact | The collaboration has conducted two research workshops, and gathered further auto-ethnographic data, establishing a research project derived from our Policy Fellowships. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary, drawing on the disciplinary expertise of the collaboration's members across the social sciences and arts/humanities. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | UKRI Policy Fellows 2021 network |
| Organisation | University College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Participated in auto-ethnographic workshop as part of research. Worked with partners on paper development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners listed are those whose contributions to the collaboration have made in-kind contributions through facilitating workshops. Partners from several other institutions have also contributed, including through participation in workshops and paper development. |
| Impact | The collaboration has conducted two research workshops, and gathered further auto-ethnographic data, establishing a research project derived from our Policy Fellowships. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary, drawing on the disciplinary expertise of the collaboration's members across the social sciences and arts/humanities. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation (Government Social Research conference) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented with Cabinet Office colleagues at the GSR conference to an audience of social researchers across government. Raised awareness of and engaged with those researchers about the Evaluation Registry project. Good engagement from the audience during questions and several approaches after the session for further engagement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |