Dancing between “Zoom In” and “Zoom Out” Perspectives to Evaluate Social Innovation Labs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.68497Keywords:
developmental evaluation, emergent interventions, learning and evaluation framework, social innovation, social innovation labsAbstract
Social Innovation (SI) Labs are increasingly gaining attention as a specific class of social innovation promising to effect systems change. Evaluation of SI Labs is in its infancy, and so there is a limited track record of systematic evidence and learning to support the practice of SI Labs. This practice note shares insights and learning from the process of evaluating a certain model of SI Labs grounded in the “zoom in–zoom out” approach. This represents a hybrid approach that combines elements of developmental evaluation with elements of other evaluation approaches to enable the interplay between two complementary perspectives: a more in-depth look into each phase of the Lab (“zoom in”) and a broader look at the Lab in its entirety (“zoom out”), and its contribution to a more established place-based strategy.
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Copyright (c) 2020 Mihaela Dinca-Panaitescu
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