S06_ Evaluation for Transformative Democratic Futures: Addressing the polycrisis through systemic learning, power shifts and regeneration
S08_ Evaluation, Democracy and Bias in an AI-shaped, Sustainability-focused Development World
S06_ Evaluation for Transformative Democratic Futures: Addressing the polycrisis through systemic learning, power shifts and regeneration
S08_ Evaluation, Democracy and Bias in an AI-shaped, Sustainability-focused Development World
S07_Re-thinking Evaluation Professionalism for Vibrant Democracies: Ethics, Values, and Systemic Capacity in Institutions
Developed by Scott Chaplowe¹, Aida El Khoury de Paula², Marlene Laeubli Loud³, Glenn O’Neil⁴, Barbara Schmidt-Abbey⁵, Bob Williams⁶
Abstract
What forms of professionalism are actually fit-for-purpose when evaluation operates in contested, complex, and democratically fragile settings? What forms are desirable for the future? These are the central questions this strand brings to EES 2026. Evaluation is increasingly conducted in a context of overlapping crises, including democratic erosion, geopolitical instability, climate emergencies, widening inequalities, rapid digitalisation, and declining trust in public institutions. These conditions raise expectations that evaluation will support decision-making, learning, and accountability, while simultaneously constraining the institutional environments in which evaluation is commissioned, managed, and used.
The strand adopts a systemic view and argues that evaluation professionalism can no longer be understood as individual expertise plus compliance with standards. Professional quality in evaluation is co-produced — by evaluators, commissioners, managers, and users together — and it depends on governance arrangements, institutional cultures, and commissioning practices as much as on individual skill. Future-fit professionalism therefore requires redesigning how evaluation is commissioned, governed, and used, not only how it is practised.
Across three interlinked, fully participatory 90-minute sessions, the strand takes participants on a progressive learning journey: from mapping the professional ecosystem, to interrogating the structural dilemmas that most commonly break it down, to a foresight activity for identifying concrete action pathways grounded in their own institutional reality. The strand closes with a Commitment Wall — individual pledges, collectively witnessed.
No presentations. No passive listening. Everything is generated through structured group work with mixed-role participants — because the session design itself enacts the co-produced, relational professionalism the strand advocates.
The strand adopts a systemic view and argues that evaluation professionalism can no longer be understood as individual expertise plus compliance with standards. Professional quality in evaluation is co-produced — by evaluators, commissioners, managers, and users together — and it depends on governance arrangements, institutional cultures, and commissioning practices as much as on individual skill. Future-fit professionalism therefore requires redesigning how evaluation is commissioned, governed, and used, not only how it is practised.
Across three interlinked, fully participatory 90-minute sessions, the strand takes participants on a progressive learning journey: from mapping the professional ecosystem, to interrogating the structural dilemmas that most commonly break it down, to a foresight activity for identifying concrete action pathways grounded in their own institutional reality. The strand closes with a Commitment Wall — individual pledges, collectively witnessed.
No presentations. No passive listening. Everything is generated through structured group work with mixed-role participants — because the session design itself enacts the co-produced, relational professionalism the strand advocates.
Rationale and Objectives
Evaluation is under pressure. Uncertain conditions intensify demands on the field while simultaneously constraining how evaluation is commissioned, managed, and used. Democratic erosion, geopolitical instability, climate emergencies, politicised evidence, and institutional distrust are not background noise — they are the operating environment. The question the field must face is not whether evaluation should be professionalised, but what professionalism means and requires in this environment.
The prevailing view in the Evaluation field emphasises credentialing, technical standards, and evaluator competencies, but this approach is increasingly seen as inadequate. Modern theories argue that professionalism arises from the use of specialised knowledge, ethical and value-based practices, and a social mandate rooted in trust and the common good. Additionally, all participants in evaluation systems, regardless of their role, face constraints beyond their control, such as political, legislative, and historical factors. Professional practice is relational, shaped by mandates, governance, and power dynamics rather than solely by individual behaviour. In evaluation, this suggests that professional quality is co-created across the entire ecosystem.
The strand translates this into a practical argument: ethical, values-based evaluation cannot be realised if the dilemmas confronting those involved in commissioning processes are not acknowledged and addressed at both the individual and collective levels. Professionalism is a shared responsibility, and it requires a shared response.
The strand pursues four objectives:
1. Advance a systemic understanding of evaluation professionalism as a co-produced, relational, and institutional practice, not an individual attribute, that encompasses evaluators, commissioners, managers, and users across the evaluation community
2. Examine how commissioning models and governance arrangements enable or constrain professional judgement, ethical practice, and adaptive learning - and identify the specific structural dilemmas that make systemic commissioning so difficult in practice.
3. Generate practical, contextually grounded action pathways leading to future-fit professionalism - at individual, organisational, and system levels.
4. Articulate future-oriented capacity development needs - reflexive, relational, and institutional - across the evaluation ecosystem, including evaluators, commissioners, and managers operating in complex, contested, and democratically fragile settings.
The prevailing view in the Evaluation field emphasises credentialing, technical standards, and evaluator competencies, but this approach is increasingly seen as inadequate. Modern theories argue that professionalism arises from the use of specialised knowledge, ethical and value-based practices, and a social mandate rooted in trust and the common good. Additionally, all participants in evaluation systems, regardless of their role, face constraints beyond their control, such as political, legislative, and historical factors. Professional practice is relational, shaped by mandates, governance, and power dynamics rather than solely by individual behaviour. In evaluation, this suggests that professional quality is co-created across the entire ecosystem.
The strand translates this into a practical argument: ethical, values-based evaluation cannot be realised if the dilemmas confronting those involved in commissioning processes are not acknowledged and addressed at both the individual and collective levels. Professionalism is a shared responsibility, and it requires a shared response.
The strand pursues four objectives:
1. Advance a systemic understanding of evaluation professionalism as a co-produced, relational, and institutional practice, not an individual attribute, that encompasses evaluators, commissioners, managers, and users across the evaluation community
2. Examine how commissioning models and governance arrangements enable or constrain professional judgement, ethical practice, and adaptive learning - and identify the specific structural dilemmas that make systemic commissioning so difficult in practice.
3. Generate practical, contextually grounded action pathways leading to future-fit professionalism - at individual, organisational, and system levels.
4. Articulate future-oriented capacity development needs - reflexive, relational, and institutional - across the evaluation ecosystem, including evaluators, commissioners, and managers operating in complex, contested, and democratically fragile settings.
The transformation this strand is working toward:
From transactional commissioning toward relational and dialogic practice;
From ethics as static rules toward ethics as situated professional judgement;
From technical training toward systems literacy, reflexivity, and relational capacity;
From individual compliance toward shared institutional responsibility that contributes to an enabling, system-wide evaluation community.
From ethics as static rules toward ethics as situated professional judgement;
From technical training toward systems literacy, reflexivity, and relational capacity;
From individual compliance toward shared institutional responsibility that contributes to an enabling, system-wide evaluation community.
Session Structure and Presentation Approach
The strand operates as a three-step, interlinked learning journey that ensures 1) broad engagement, 2) deeper reflection and 3) practical change pathways for the future. Each session begins with a brief reminder of the strand’s overall rationale and three-tier design so that participants who join for one session can locate themselves in the journey. No prior preparation is required.
Session 1
Mapping the Professional System
What is the system?
→
Session 2
Commissioning Dilemmas
Where does it break down?
→
Session 3
Future-Fit Professionalism
What do we change?
S1
90 min
Mapping the Professional System
Facilitated by Bob Williams and Martin Reynolds⁷
A fully participatory influence-mapping session. Working in groups around four evaluation sub-systems — Control, Expertise, Benefit, and Legitimacy — participants map what professional relationships between these sub-systems should look like: their values, style, and frequency. Systemic patterns emerge through a clustering exercise. Each cluster generates one immediate practical step.
Output: a shared map of desired professional relationships in the evaluation ecosystem, carried forward as the conceptual foundation for Session 2.
Output: a shared map of desired professional relationships in the evaluation ecosystem, carried forward as the conceptual foundation for Session 2.
S2
90 min
Dilemma Laboratory: Commissioning Evaluation in a Transforming World
Facilitated by Aida El Khoury de Paula, Marlene Laeubli Loud, Glenn O’Neil and Barbara Schmidt-Abbey
Session 1 mapped the influence and desirable professional relationships of an ethical, trustworthy evaluation ecosystem working toward the common good. Session 2 takes the next analytical step: it examines what happens when those desired relationships break down under real governance conditions. Five of the commissioning dilemmas identified in Session 1 will be used in this session to identify where and how such influences and relationships are enabled or constrained in practice. Session 3 will ask what each of us and our institutions must change so that those relationships can actually function in the more desirable manner.
No presentations. All content generated by participants!
No presentations. All content generated by participants!
S3
90 min
Designing Future-Fit Professional Practice
Facilitated by Scott Chaplowe Co-facilitated by Joy Mukoma⁸, Vedat Sagonjeva⁹, Vincent Ssenyondo¹⁰ and Liliana Lucaciu¹¹
The closing session moves from diagnosis to action. Groups work through three foresight scenarios — AI-driven evaluation (2032), democratic backsliding (2030), climate emergency governance (2031) — then complete an institutional Diagnosis Canvas grounded in their own organisational reality. A Gallery Share-Back surfaces cross-cutting patterns. The strand closes with a Commitment Wall: each participant writes one specific, personal commitment and places it on a shared wall, collectively witnessed. This is the strand’s enduring output.
Format and audience
All three sessions are fully participatory. There are no paper presentations. Mixed-role groups — evaluators, commissioners, managers, programme officers, funders, researchers, policy actors — are maintained throughout, because the strand’s central claim is that professional quality is co-produced across roles. The session design enacts this claim rather than merely asserting it.
No preparation is required of participants. Those who attend all three sessions experience a cumulative learning journey. Those who attend one session encounter a self-contained 90-minute experience that connects to the broader strand.
No preparation is required of participants. Those who attend all three sessions experience a cumulative learning journey. Those who attend one session encounter a self-contained 90-minute experience that connects to the broader strand.
Keywords
Evaluation professionalism
Systemic professionalism
Commissioning dilemmas
Future-fit practice
Democratic governance
Co-produced quality
Evaluation ethics
Participatory methods
Adaptive commissioning
Institutional capacity
Power in evaluation
Dilemma Laboratory
Affiliations
1. Scott Chaplowe, International Evaluation Academy, and Independent Consultant, Spain
2. Aida El Khoury de Paula, Independent Consultant, Spain
3. Marlene Laeubli Loud, LAUCO Evaluation and Training Consultancy, Switzerland, EES Board Member
4. Glenn O’Neil, Founder of Owl RE, research and evaluation services; lecturer/trainer in communication & evaluation. Switzerland
5. Barbara Schmidt-Abbey, Evaluation and Systems Practice Consultant. Co-lead of EES Thematic Working Group 'systems approaches for evaluation', and EES Board member.
6. Bob Williams, Independent Consultant, New Zealand
7. Martin Reynolds, Open University, UK
8. Joy Mukoma, Independent Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Consultant, Kenya
9. Vedat Sagonjeva, Strategy Development Specialist; Director of Strategic Planning Office, OPM Kosovo
10. Vicent Ssenyondo, African Evaluation Association (AfrEA); Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development; Republic of Uganda
11. Liliana Lucaciu, Evaluation & Policy Expert in Adaptive Systems, Lideea Development Actions, Romania
2. Aida El Khoury de Paula, Independent Consultant, Spain
3. Marlene Laeubli Loud, LAUCO Evaluation and Training Consultancy, Switzerland, EES Board Member
4. Glenn O’Neil, Founder of Owl RE, research and evaluation services; lecturer/trainer in communication & evaluation. Switzerland
5. Barbara Schmidt-Abbey, Evaluation and Systems Practice Consultant. Co-lead of EES Thematic Working Group 'systems approaches for evaluation', and EES Board member.
6. Bob Williams, Independent Consultant, New Zealand
7. Martin Reynolds, Open University, UK
8. Joy Mukoma, Independent Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Consultant, Kenya
9. Vedat Sagonjeva, Strategy Development Specialist; Director of Strategic Planning Office, OPM Kosovo
10. Vicent Ssenyondo, African Evaluation Association (AfrEA); Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development; Republic of Uganda
11. Liliana Lucaciu, Evaluation & Policy Expert in Adaptive Systems, Lideea Development Actions, Romania
