Evaluation and Transformative Social Innovation: A Call for New Habits

Abstract

In this article we argue that dominant measurement and evaluation methods reduce the transformative potential of social innovation initiatives. Taking a pragmatist perspective on transformative social innovation and drawing on a commonly used distinction between simple, complicated and complex intervention logics, we demonstrate that habitually used monitoring and evaluation methods are often supported by a simple or complicated intervention logic. These intervention logics and related understandings of social change and knowledge production are incompatible with the ambition to realise transformation. Less dominant methods, which often are supported by a complex intervention logic, seem to be more apt, especially when they do not focus on adaptation alone, for the monitoring and evaluation of transformative social innovation initiatives. On the basis of this analysis, we plead for new habits of monitoring and evaluation and formulate an agenda for further action and research.