Integrity at the UK Evaluation Society Conference 2025

Integrity at UKES 2025: Data in Focus, Driving Evaluation Excellence

The UK Evaluation Society Conference 2025: Data in Focus, Driving Evaluation Excellence, saw Integrity deliver four in-person and digital sessions across three days – and display a prize-winning poster.

Integrity Head of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Niki Wood said: “It was a fantastic conference. Thank you so much to the UK Evaluation Society for hosting an amazing digital and in-person experience. We really look forward to taking forward the new ideas, connections and opportunities the event has presented.”

Kicking off digital day on 19 May was Integrity Principal Expert, Design, Nick Moore’s presentation with Niki and Phil Sheriff from Blacksmiths. ‘Phishing for lessons: Taking a cross-disciplinary approach to monitoring and evaluating cybersecurity capacity building projects’. We provided an overview of the challenges and opportunities for MEL in this thematic space, and shared lessons from our experience monitoring and evaluating cybersecurity capacity building projects. This is a nascent space for evaluative practice, and so it was exciting to share some of our approaches.

Also on digital day, Integrity Principal Manager, Data Analytics, Naji Harfouche presented two case studies in ‘Creative solutions for using secondary data for conflict analysis: from nectar to knowledge’ to demonstrate how Integrity uses innovative data science methods to draw from a wide range of existing data sources. This can help to counter regular challenges in research and evaluation such as budget constraints, research strain on communities, and fragmented data collection efforts.

On day two we displayed two posters at the conference exhibition, with a prize awarded to our design with o-x.ai showcasing ‘Natural Language Processing approaches for evaluation: Innovation at the centaur of attention’. Integrity Senior MEL Expert, Lamia Renaud’s poster on ‘Embracing complexity through accessible approaches to measure influence’ also attracted plenty of attention.

It was a busy final day on 22 May for Niki, delivering two collaborative sessions. ‘You made it less bad! Evaluating crime mitigation over positive gains’ with Teresa Di Giacomo from Chemonics UK, explored how evaluators can tackle the head-scratching challenge of how one evaluates results that represent preventions, mitigations, and making problematic situations less bad as opposed to a positive gain. They presented how a combination of deep theory-building, drawing on a wide range of data, and collaborative reflection and sensemaking (ranging from contribution courts to AdaptScan) are key to success. ‘Theories of Change on trial: ToCs for a real world’ with Chris Mellor, FCDO; Isabel Vogel, and Thomas Aston, packed the room to capacity with an audience of 106 and saw lively discussion around a staged a trial for the Theory of Change. Thankfully, the Theory of Change was deemed not guilty of charges, though perhaps what constitutes good practice might not evade scrutiny in the future.