Realist evaluation

What does realist evaluation uncover?: Realist evaluation uncovers the underlying causal mechanisms that explain why interventions succeed or fail in contexts, referencing the often hidden reasoning and responses of participants.
why is Realist evaluation useful?: A parenting programme might work brilliantly in one community and poorly in another, not because the intervention changed, but because different social norms, resources or relationships triggered different mechanisms. Realist evaluation reveals not just whether something works, but how and why it works differently across varied settings.

We ask: what works, for whom, in what circumstances, and how? We build and test context-mechanism-outcome configurations iteratively, using mixed methods to understand generative causation in real-world complexity.

We’re currently applying theory-based realist evaluation to understand AI tool implementation across European labour markets.