Engaging Community, Sharing Leadership
AEA invites evaluation practitioners, researchers, and community members to explore and advance the future of evaluation at Evaluation 2025. This year’s theme, Engaging Communities, Sharing Leadership, reflects our commitment to fostering inclusive dialogue, co-creating knowledge, and driving meaningful transformation.
The 2025 theme recognizes the evolving role of evaluation in today’s world — one that demands equity, collaboration, and shared responsibility. By focusing on three key pillars — Transforming Evaluation, Engaging Communities, and Sharing Leadership — we aim to challenge norms, expand perspectives, and shape the field of evaluation in ways that are ethical, just, and inclusive.
Transforming Evaluation
A transformative approach to evaluation acknowledges and addresses power imbalances, systemic inequities, and historical injustices. Drawing inspiration from Donna Mertens’ Transformative Research and Evaluation (2008), we recognize that evaluators must actively work toward social justice by questioning assumptions and engaging in ethical practices that dismantle oppressive structures.
At Evaluation 2025, we seek to spark conversations on:
- How evaluation can be leveraged to confront issues of power, discrimination, and oppression.
- Ways to test underlying assumptions and promote equity-driven evaluation.
- Practical strategies for integrating transformative methodologies into evaluation practice.
Engaging Communities
Engagement is more than inclusion; it is an ongoing, participatory process that builds long-term, collaborative relationships. By aligning evaluation with the collective vision of communities, we create more responsive and meaningful practices.
Our conversations at Evaluation 2025 will explore:
- Strategies for fostering authentic engagement in evaluation.
- Elevating the voices of those who have historically been unseen, unaccepted, and unheard in decision-making.
- Co-creating evaluation frameworks that value diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
Sharing Leadership
Leadership in evaluation is not about singular authority—it is about distributed knowledge, data, and stories that can lead to shared power and co-creation. Evaluators play a crucial role in guiding communities through reflection, learning, and unlearning by making space for courageous conversations and collaborative decision-making.
At Evaluation 2025, we will explore:
- How evaluators can model shared leadership in practice.
- The importance of bridging roles and responsibilities across different stakeholders.
- Strategies for facilitating inclusive conversations that lead to action and change.
We invite you to be part of this important conversation as we come together to reflect, challenge, and reimagine the future of evaluation.