The paper summarises a rich discussion which took place on KBF during October and November 2011. The discussion focused on how to evaluate the impact of Knowledge Brokering work. Members shared experience and insights about evaluating impact in order to be better able to evaluate our own work and build greater understanding of the potential of the sector.  

The discussion reached some areas of consensus and began to explore other areas outlined below. Each section contains links to the wide range of resources shared: 

• Understanding the purpose of your work is the basis for evaluation:  the debate stressed the value of both generic planning frameworks (e.g. Theory of Change, Social Framework)  and frameworks specific to knowledge brokering    
• Be clear why you are evaluating your work:  there are various reasons for undertaking an evaluation that will shape what questions you ask and what methods you use
• Understand what you mean by impact: the changes that  KBs are seeking to generate include changes in effectiveness, policies, behaviour, indicators of wellbeing and different kinds of impact
• The challenge of indicators and metrics:   there are currently few good indicators and metrics for KB work - indicators will depend on what you are trying to achieve, but there is potential to collectively develop thinking in this area
• Methodologies and approaches:  there are a range of different approaches that KBs can use, from case studies and surveys, to propensity score matching.   

This debate is intended to feed into and catalyse future action to help strengthen our individual and collective understanding of how to evaluate the impact of KB work.  Ideas for future activities that are worth considering include:
1.    Sharing what we are actually doing, methods indicators metrics etc
2.    Build a sector wide bank of impact case studies, possibly linked to a theory of change
3.    Create a guide that suggests different evaluation approaches/questions/metrics and methods that are appropriate to understanding different kinds of impact.

You can dowload the discussion summary at http://bit.ly/xxBKTy (pdf)

You can also view the resources shared in this discussion on the KBF wiki and in the  KBF Impact Resources document (pdf). Full links below:

KBF wiki: http://www.knowledgebrokersforum.org/wiki

KBF Impact resources (pdf): http://bit.ly/wAzLZc


 

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