Interrogating the Casual Theories Underpinning social Investment: Action research using the Qualitative Impact Protocol (QuIP)

Seminar abstract

Social investors are informed by causal theories linking their financing to intended social outcomes.

I will reflect on the role of independent evaluation studies as a means to interrogate these theories. How far are they consistent with the perceptions of other stakeholders, particularly end-users or intended beneficiaries, and how open are investors to adjusting their views in response to such feedback?

I will reflect on insights gained from key informant interviews conducted with staff in organisations who have commissioned QuIP studies conducted by Bath SDR Ltd over the last five years.

This is a university spin-off social enterprise set up specifically to undertake QuIP studies as a form of action research. C

lients have included leading charities, foundations, private firms and impact investors, bilateral donors and UN agencies. The presentation updates and builds on Attributing Development Impact, published in 2019.

In addressing recurring evaluation problems (including contextual complexity, confirmation bias, weak generalisability, opaque data analysis and organisational decoupling) it points to new approaches that incorporate mixed methods, blindfolded interviewing, rigorous qualitative coding and the use of causal mapping to interrogate middle range theory.

How to attend this seminar

This seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

We welcome you to join this seminar online on Friday 10 December 2021 at 2pm

Enjoy this seminar with your friends, colleagues and classmates.

Speaker bio

James Copestake is co-director of the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath, director of studies for the Doctorate in Policy Research and Practice at the Institute for Policy Research, and a founding director of Bath Social and Development Research Ltd.

His teaching, research and publications explore development finance and its evaluation, defining development finance as investing money with social intent. This entails identifying how different actors think about social value and about the causal mechanisms linking it to their activities.

James has conducted and supported research in many countries - particularly Bolivia, India, Malawi, Peru, the UK and Zambia.