Research, Evidence and Learning team
Working to strengthen research, evidence and learning across Christian Aid, and to critically engage with the development sector in support of effective, inclusive practitioner research.
Our approach
Christian Aid believes in shifting power and working in partnership, and these principles underpin the work of the Research, Evidence and Learning team, founded in 2016.
What we do
The Research, Evidence and Learning (REL) team aims to:
- support the generation of high quality research and evidence in Christian Aid
- enable and encourage the use of evidence in programme design, organisational learning, understanding our impact, policy development, and communication
- shift power in the development research sector, advocating for research led by practitioners, designed for impact, and inclusive of diverse, marginalised perspectives.
We do this through four areas of work:
- capacity development
- programme research and learning
- internal strategic reviews
- influencing the sector by advocating for practitioner-led development research that includes diverse and marginalised voices.
Key resources
March 2020: This practice paper documents the first three years of REL's long-term study, Ten Years of Change. It narrates our ideas and ambitions, and how we tried to implement them; and it discusses some of our assumptions about practitioner research, reflecting on how they played out in practice.
July 2019: In this blog, Head of REL Kate Newman argues that development research funders need to re-think what research for impact means.
October 2018: These resources – an introduction, six modules and nine written and audio case studies – will help different stakeholders involved in collaborative international development research put principles for fair and equitable research partnerships into practice.
Meet the team
All the members of the Research, Evidence and Learning team have worked in both academia and NGOs.
We:
- bring together research skills and an understanding of practice
- are experienced in applied, practical research and working in collaboration to develop research questions, choose research methods and plan for impact
- champion practitioner research, capacity development and mutual learning.
Follow us
Practitioner research, evidence politics, research partnerships.
