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CECAN Webinar: Making Policy and Making Policy Work with Developmental Evaluation

Jul 24, 2018 | News

CECAN were pleased to host a webinar with Dr Martin Reynolds from the Open University on 24th July. Martin presented his work on developmental evaluation, which endeavours to reconfigure evaluation practice away from merely serving purposes of external accountability of policy towards making evaluation integral to the dualistic practice of policy making and policy implementation.

A framework of developmental evaluation was introduced based on a simple heuristic founded on three principles from a tradition of systems thinking in practice – understanding inter-relationships, engaging with multiple perspectives, and reflecting on boundary judgements. Two case stories of developmental evaluation were used to illustrate the workings of the heuristic towards making policy and making policy work.

If you were unable to join the webinar, you can watch/listen to the session via our Youtube channel below. Martin has also kindly made his slides available for download here.

 

Missed the CECAN Conference 2026: Global Perspectives on Complex Evaluation? Catch up on the discussions with policy evaluation experts from the US & Europe. 🔗 Head over to our videos page to watch the recordings: www.cecan.ac.uk/videos/ #PolicyEvaluation #Complexity

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— CECAN (@cecan.bsky.social) July 13, 2026 at 3:17 PM

In case you missed our latest webinar: 'Testing, Learning and Adapting: Introducing the New Test and Learn Annex to the Magenta Book', presented by Dr Gloria Crabolu, a recording is now available on the CECAN website: www.cecan.ac.uk/videos/

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— CECAN (@cecan.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 9:21 AM
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