The R2A roundtables continue this month with ‘Evaluating research uptake, impact and communicating evaluations’ on 28 September.

The DFID-funded What Works to Prevent Violence evaluation team will host a research uptake roundtable to both discuss the challenges of communicating research about ending VAWG and share the lessons learned from the Mid-Term Evaluation. The evaluation team, led by IMC, will discuss their approach to evaluating research uptake and the importance of communicating the findings of evaluations to different audiences.

In this third Research Uptake Roundtable we will explore a) the specifics of communicating research about ending violence against women and girls (VAWG), and b) how the uptake of research about ending VAWG can be evaluated effectively.

We all know that communicating research about ending VAWG requires sensitivity and understanding of the context in which the research took place. Violence against women and girls is an abuse of rights. The research we do on it is highly politicised and strongly linked to complex social norms, across different societies. We need to guard the safety of research participants, and respect the confidentiality of information shared, when we communicate research to wider audiences.

When we evaluate research about ending VAWG, we understand research uptake, or policy influence, might be very hard to trace because social change is difficult to measure. Communicating our findings from evaluations with a wider audience can, therefore, be tricky.  Difficulties are increased because we need to reach a wide range of different audiences: policymakers who are influenced by their own beliefs or norms, marginalised members of society who might not be literate, and donors who need context-specific approaches with proven results.

Join the panel on 28 September at 2pm BST and sign up for FREE using GoToWebinar.

Facilitators and guest speakers for the Roundtable will include:

• Facilitator- Megan Lloyd-Laney| Director of CommsConsult and evaluator of the What Works Programme
• Panellist- Professor Tamsin Bradley| Reader in International Development Studies and evaluator of Performance Evaluation of What Works to Prevent Violence
• Panellist- Dr Sheena Crawford| Team Leader, Performance Evaluation of What Works to Prevent Violence
• Panellist- Katherine Liakos| Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Consultant