Evaluation of IPPO’S Impact
Rebecca Hanlin, Amanda-Leigh O’Connell
The International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) was launched in 2020 with an overarching aim to enable access to and use of evidence and knowledge to mitigate the social harms of COVID-19. It was focused on achieving this aim through:
- stimulating demand for research and evidence from a range of policy stakeholders in the UK;
- supplying a range of knowledge synthesis products;
- facilitating and enabling the creation and use of appropriate evidence, including building relationships and networks with policy and other stakeholders.
An evaluation of its first two years of operations—during the COVID-19 pandemic— found that the Observatory developed a range of mechanisms and networks that enabled it to fill critical gaps in demand for evidence and stimulate demand and use for that evidence.
IPPO received a second round of funding based on its success in providing evidence for policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the COVID-19 pandemic receded, the Observatory focused on four thematic areas (COVID Recovery, Net Zero, Place and Spatial Inequalities and Socio-economic Inequalities). This also led to revising IPPO’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) plan. This included building in an evaluation at the end of its second two-year cycle.
This report gives an overview of the findings of this impact evaluation, which is focused on the period of operations during IPPO 2 (January 2023 to November 2024) with some connections made to IPPO 1 (2020 – 2022) work. The evaluation is based on quantitative and qualitative data collected from analysis of IPPO’s documentation of its activities, interviews with 18 individuals (staff and external stakeholders) and the discussions during two learning workshops and an outcomes harvesting workshop during the evaluation period.
The evaluation highlighted that:
- IPPO 2 has stimulated demand for research and evidence from a range of policy stakeholders in the UK. It has increased the number of policy stakeholders engaging with social science research through IPPO’s activities, significantly strengthening demand in the devolved nations.
- New and innovative approaches to supplying knowledge synthesis products have been the hallmark of IPPO 2. IPPO has consolidated its roundtable methodology, developed new policy engagement formats to supply knowledge (and facilitate demand) through policy schools and highlighted the value of systems mapping methodology in policy analysis.
- IPPO 2 has facilitated the use of evidence in policy through a series of partnerships and created a discussion on innovations in facilitating evidence use. IPPO’s ‘innovations in facilitating evidence use’ events series during IPPO 2 allowed policy stakeholders to interrogate and reflect on what works within their environments.
Overall, IPPO has ‘left a legacy’, as noted by one interviewee, and achieved its impact of developing a ‘more informed policy environment’, especially at the devolved nations level. It has contributed to setting up new public policy centres in Northern Ireland and Scotland and worked with an existing centre in Wales. It has led to more interaction between policy stakeholders and sharing lessons and experiences across the devolved nations. It has highlighted the importance of evidence support at other levels of government, notably local, regional or municipal authorities.
The experiences of IPPO 2 have led to lessons learnt about the role of an evidence-policy interlocutor, the importance of time and a start-up phase, and the need for connections and an international evidence base. The evaluation also highlighted the importance of a clear and well-developed operational system. These lessons create the basis for recommendations for those planning to develop similar initiatives.
Find the full evalution report here.