aes18 International Evaluation Conference

Larelle McMillan (CSIRO), Samantha Stone-Jovicich (CSIRO), Toni White (AgResearch New Zealand), Helen Percy (AgResearch New Zealand), Lan Chen (AgResearch New Zealand)

The potential for monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to enhance innovation and impact is receiving increasing attention in practice and research. AgResearch NZ and CSIRO Agriculture & Food are working with our biophysical researchers to transform our organisations to achieve increased innovation and impact through embedded monitoring, evaluation and learning at the project and programme level. Lessons from CSIRO and AgResearch NZ has shown that it is difficult to systematically show the value of MEL in practice, with many researchers and managers asking "Is it worth the effort and resources?".  While there are an increasing number of case studies and anecdotes pointing towards the role of MEL in helping deliver social, economic and environmental impacts, there is limited evidence, collated through systematic and rigorous methods, to substantiate this. In this paper we present an evaluation framework we developed drawing on insights from complexity science (the Cynefin framework) and reflective practices (the 'what, so what, now what' evaluation inquiries). The aim of the framework is to enable our organisations to gather empirical evidence, to track our MEL processes and outcomes in ways that enables organisational learning and informs research strategies and actions; and to enable comparative analyses. We share insights from piloting this framework and provide reflections on how it can support researchers and science organisations to transform the way impact and innovation is framed and delivered.