Evaluation researchers are tasked with providing the evidence to guide programme building and to assess its outcomes. As such, they labour under the highest expectations - bringing independence and objectivity to policy making. They face huge challenges, given the complexity of modern interventions and the politicised backdrop to all of their investigations. They have responded with a huge portfolio of research techniques and, through their professional associations, have set up schemes to establish standards for evaluative inquiry and to accredit evaluation practitioners. A big question...

Realistic Evaluation shows how programme evaluation needs to be, and can be, bettered. It presents a profound yet highly readable critique of current evaluation practice, and introduces a 'manifesto' and 'handbook' for a fresh approach.

Looking at the spread of evidence-based policy making across the Western world, this book examines the methodological assumptions that lie behind this drive for government departments, academic research projects and NGOs to adopt an 'evidence-based' approach, when so little has been done to ask what works in an evidence-based context.

Evaluation researchers are tasked with providing the evidence to guide programme building and to assess its outcomes. As such, they labour under the highest expectations - bringing independence and objectivity to policy making. They face huge challenges, given the complexity of modern interventions and the politicised backdrop to all of their investigations. They have responded with a huge portfolio of research techniques and, through their professional associations, have set up schemes to establish standards for evaluative inquiry and to accredit evaluation practitioners. A big question...