The concept of the Water-Energy-Food nexus has been in vogue since being identified as part of the ‘perfect storm’ of drivers on society by the UN in 2011.
Blog
Carillion May Have Collapsed, But Public-Private Partnerships Can Be So Much More…
Last month, Carillion, one of the largest companies in the UK which regularly entered into contracts with government to deliver public infrastructure and services, went into liquidation. Since then, public-private partnerships (PPP), and their pantomime villain superstars – private finance initiatives (PFI) – have received an unprecedented level of criticism. The Guardian Opinion section – and my love-hate relationship with it – has gone into overdrive!
Computational Modelling of Public Policy: Reflections on Practice
CECAN has published a new paper, ‘Computational Modelling of Public Policy: Reflections on Practice.’
CECAN Seminar: How Evaluation in the SDG Era Can Mislead, and What to do About it
Professionals in evaluation pay a lot of attention to how to evaluate. We are less thoughtful about exactly what to evaluate, and why. Stakeholders’ interests and questions tend to determine what will be useful to focus on at a particular point in time.
Teaching Evaluation of Complex Policy and Programmes
CECAN develops, tests and enhances methods to deal with complexity in policy evaluation, trying to advance research, policy and evaluation practice. To ensure that these methods will influence an ever widening audience, CECAN has now launched a syllabus for building capacity and supporting the application of complexity sensitive evaluation nationally and internationally.
Putting Values Back in Evaluation
Policy evaluation is about assessing the value of policies, but too little attention, it seems to me, is paid to the meaning of “value” in all this. The English word “value”, of course, has multiple meanings that include numerical (e.g. “a parameter value”), economic (e.g. “good value”) and ethical (e.g. “a value judgment”).
CECAN Attends Social Innovation Conference
CECAN was represented at the recent Social Innovation Conference in Lisbon, by Professor Liz Varga of Cranfield University.
BEIS Energy Trilemma
The aim of the case study was to explore, via CECAN’s approach to participatory systems mapping, the energy trilemma policy landscape. Specifically, it was to map relevant policies, their interaction, context, and impact on the trilemma, and to highlight: the impacts of policies on the three ‘legs’ of the trilemma; potential common and/or contradictory aims and mechanisms amongst policies; and uncertainty and evidence gaps.
Building Collaborative Narratives and Developing Trust in Policy and its Evaluation
On the 23rd and 24th November 2017 members of the CECAN team, Pete Barbrook-Johnson, Clare Twigger-Ross and myself attended the EEEN conference in the beautiful surroundings of the Royal Society in Edinburgh. Facilitated by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), civil servants from environment agencies, consultants, practitioners and academics came together to share experiences and ideas for the future of environmental policy evaluation.
CECAN Webinar: Complexity Theory and “Invisible Mechanisms”: Implications for Methods and Commissioning
This presentation continues the CECAN series on realist research and evaluation and their use in relation to complexity. It focuses on the issue of causation.
CECAN Seminar: Evaluation in Follow Up and Review Processes of the SDGs: Future Vision and Current Practice
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations in 2015 puts follow-up and review processes at the heart of global and national efforts to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Research Fellow – RCUK Innovation Fellowship
The University of Surrey has been awarded a three year RCUK Innovation Fellowship by ESRC.
CECAN International Symposium on Complexity Approaches to Evaluate Global Nexus Policy Challenges
This month CECAN proudly hosted an International Symposium on complexity approaches to evaluate global nexus policy challenges, at Barnett Hill Hotel in Surrey.
An Extra Claus for the Santa Book? Evaluating Christmas the CECAN Way!
As we all know CECAN is pioneering, testing and promoting innovative policy evaluation approaches and methods across Nexus domains through a series of “real-life” case study projects – it’s about measuring best value in complex, inter-connecting systems.
Travels in Evaluation – Systematising the Complex, Enjoying the Journey
I first heard of Qualitative Comparative Analysis from Prof David Byrne at an early CECAN meeting and it seemed to address key issues we faced when evaluating 13 very different interventions across England designed to improve community resilience to flooding.
CECAN’s The Visual Representation of Complex Systems at Environment, Economy, Democracy: Flourishing Together
As the first step in developing my CECAN research project titled ‘The Visual Representation of Complex Systems: A Typology of Visual Codes for Systemic Relations’ I was thrilled to have the opportunity to engage with the Relating Systems Thinking and Design community last month.
Energy Security Policy Evaluation Workshop at BEIS
We were delighted to run a successful policy evaluation workshop last week with policy teams and analysts working on energy security and the wider energy ‘trilemma’ (decarbonisation, prices, and security), at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
CECAN Seminar: Can We Have Our Cake and Eat It Post-Brexit? Effective Regulation Without Redtape?
New methodological perspectives, from economics and other disciplines, and research into practice are suggesting more effective approaches to regulation that could also avoid escalatory pressures towards red tape.
CECAN Seminar: Evaluating Sustainability – Is It Possible? A Case for Focusing on Evaluating Decision-Making for Sustainable Development
The complexity of sustainability is immense, yet many policies and plans now have sustainability as an aim. While it is difficult to empirically evaluate sustainability outcomes, it is possible to evaluate the process of decision-making to identify if decision-making is becoming more informed and working towards balancing social, economic and environmental priorities.
Dynamic Pattern Synthesis Summer School
September saw a successful collaboration between CECAN and Brighton University, who hosted a Dynamic Pattern Synthesis (DPS) summer school.
CECAN Seminar: We Ask Too Much And Too Little of Program Evaluators
We’d like to extend our thanks to Professor Saville Kushner who gave an excellent talk on behalf of CECAN at the Food Standards Agency on 9th October.
DEFRA RDPE / Future Farming
Contact: Frances Rowe and Adam Hejnowicz DEFRA and the Rural Development Programme for England: Evaluating complex policy at a time of dynamic change. From 2016 to 2018 DEFRA worked with the CECAN case study team, led by Newcastle and York universities, to help inform...
Environment Agency – Enforcement on Waste Crime
Contact: Amy Proctor, Newcastle University CECAN Case Study: Enforcement on Waste Crime - Environment Agency Between 2016 and 2018, the CECAN case study team, led by Newcastle University, worked with the Environment Agency to develop a new approach to their evaluation...
BEIS – Contracts for Difference
Contact: Pete Barbrook Johnson CECAN Contracts for Difference Case Study – BEIS CECAN team members provided expert input in the evaluation work conducted by BEIS and contractors on the Contracts for Difference policy. Completed in 2018, CECAN supported as a ‘critical...
DEFRA – Bovine TB
Contact: Amy Proctor, Newcastle University CECAN Bovine TB Case Study – DEFRA Defra are currently developing an evaluation framework to guide their evaluation of the overall Bovine TB Strategy. CECAN have been operating as a ‘critical friend’ in this process, with...
CECAN Seminar: Understanding Health Policy in the Third Era Through a Complex Systems Lens
We’d like to extend our thanks to Professor David Hunter who gave an excellent talk at BEIS on 12th September.
A Whole New World – What Next?
It’s been a month since we launched ‘A Whole New World: Funding and Commissioning in Complexity’ and the response has been incredible. Over 120 people came to the two launch events, and more than 1000 people read the report online in the first week. We’ve also started to have some excellent conversations about how to take this work forward.
Complexity Settings to the Rescue: A New Lease of Life for Evidence-Based Policy?
It would be naive and, potentially, ill-advised to have evaluation solely drive policy direction. Good, open, evidence-backed policy, however, does need to be informed by evaluation results and insights. My CECAN Fellowship provided me with a rare opportunity to investigate how evaluation is applied in real life within a government department – in this case Defra – and how it can be used to plan for future policymaking.
CECAN Case Study with DEFRA: Evaluation of Bovine TB Strategy
Defra are currently developing an evaluation framework to guide their evaluation of the overall Bovine TB Strategy.
CECAN Case Study with BEIS: Contracts For Difference
CECAN team members have been providing expert input in the current evaluation work being conducted by BEIS and contractors on the Contracts for Difference policy.