Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN)

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Responding to the increasing recognition of complexity of policy and policy implementation, CECAN produced innovation in policy evaluation for policies relating to energy, food, water and the environment (the 'Nexus'). CECAN developed and extended methods for policy evaluation, established case study based co-production between researchers, evaluation practitioners, policy makers and analysts and evolved an agile, problem driven way of running a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary centre. While having produced high impact work (see Part 3: Key outputs and impacts to date), the kind of transformation CECAN set out to bring about is not achievable in 30 months. CECAN 2 is a consolidation of previous achievements, and a response to insights gained in the first phase and to new challenges faced by the UK. It will allow the Centre to develop and implement its innovations, knowledge exchange and co-production, with the goal of operating sustainably in the long term. CECAN 2 is particularly timely as a number of drivers are coinciding to make complexity appropriate approaches to appraisal and evaluation ever more vital. Brexit is the most complex policy and regulatory change in the UK for decades, with associated impacts on the potentially increasingly divergent relationship between the devolved nations. The issue of "big data", both its opportunities and risks, is rarely far from the news, so a key future challenge is data linkage across Government departments and sectors, particularly in the context of public-private partnerships and hybrid models. Indirect and unintended effects are increasingly being demonstrated across the Nexus: for example, declines in rural infrastructure have adverse consequences for both the environment (more car transport) and health/wellbeing (more isolation and loneliness). Larger-scale and longer-term approaches are urgently needed to account for the cumulative impact of policies and "knock-on" effects across sectors. Finally, decision-making in both the public and private sector will be severely impacted by increasing automation, with currently unknown consequences for governance. Current Government management processes are not well-equipped to deal with these multiple challenges and urgently need to have evaluation and complexity thinking more embedded within them. CECAN 2 aims to ensure that the practitioners and policy-makers we engage with are equipped with the best methods to negotiate this future complexity . The work envisaged for CECAN 2 is organised into five streams:1: Exploring the contribution that complexity-appropriate evaluation methods can make across the full policy cycle. 2: CECAN Methods Innovation Lab: delivering innovation in complexity-appropriate evaluation methods by exploration of the full range of new and emerging methods.3: Real world testing and refining of complexity-appropriate evaluation methods to co-produce solutions to the evaluation challenges posed by complexity in policy making and analysis.4: Building individual and institutional capacity to deliver complexity-appropriate policy analysis 5: Securing CECAN's future, using ESRC's Centre Transition Funding to deepen existing partnerships and build new ones to secure alternative and long-term funding for CECAN's work.