How can evaluation practice catalyse transformations towards regenerative futures?

Evaluation is a universal human activity and profoundly influences our actions. However, today’s complex, volatile and transforming world demands very different kinds of evaluation practice from conventional Western approaches that still dominate the modern professionalised evaluation discipline, and which are actively holding us back from desirable transformations. It has been strongly argued that a regenerative orientation is needed to guide our evaluation of societal transformations, in order to encourage more radical action and avoid perpetuating superficial approaches to achieving sustainability. But to date we have had limited cohered understanding of what such regenerative futures would look like and how evaluation practice must accordingly change, as well as few case studies of implementation. This PhD aimed to address these gaps to understand how evaluation practice can catalyse transformations towards regenerative futures. It creatively synthesises literature to provide major conceptual advances in clarifying regenerative systems (through a new evaluative framework, the Regenerative Lens) and principles and approaches for transformation-focused evaluation. Through collaborative design research in contexts of regional-scale food systems, the thesis also explores how to start contextualising, implementing and embedding transformation- and regeneration-focused evaluation in the way that we collectively organise for systems change. A synthesis chapter draws on learning from across the thesis to identify three critical aspects that must be addressed if evaluation practice is to catalyse transformations towards regenerative futures. First, the new roles and capabilities urgently demanded of evaluation practice by our transforming world must be recognised. Second, stepping fully into those new roles requires an existential shift in the complexity awareness, power relations, and purpose of evaluation practice. Third, a number of wider cultural enabling conditions are essential to cultivate in order to accelerate the mainstreaming and embedding of transformation-focused evaluation in transformation efforts. This presents a bold and action-oriented agenda for future research and practice.