Networks and communities to support evaluation

At the heart of our University's strategic vision, From Manchester for the World, is a commitment to enable collaborative, empowered decision-making 

Across the University lies a vibrant ecosystem of staff networks each dedicated to enhancing evaluation practices across all areas of academic and professional practice. These networks bring together colleagues from different disciplines and roles to share insights, develop skills, and co-create approaches that support evidence-informed improvements in teaching, learning, and the student experience, research, and operations. By fostering a culture of evaluation, reflective practice and continuous enhancement, these communities play a vital role in shaping our collective understanding of what works and what doesn't, what we do and how we do it.

Evaluation Advocates Network

The Evaluation Advocates Network provides a space where colleagues can share and learn from each other—both within our University and across the wider Higher Education sector. It’s a space for staff to connect, collaborate, and explore new ways to use evaluation to improve teaching, learning, and the student experience. Whether you're just getting started or have significant experience of evaluative practice, the network is here to help you think creatively, work with others, and make evidence-informed decisions about your teaching, learning and professional practice.

Aims

The Evaluation Advocates Network will: 

• Promote transparent and supportive evaluation: Support staff to use evaluation tools and approaches that give meaningful insights into student learning outcomes and help to improve the student experience. 
• Enable evidence-based decision making: Develop robust evaluation tools that equip staff with quality data to make informed decisions—whether in day-to-day teaching or strategic planning.
• Embed evaluation into everyday practice: Foster a culture of continued enhancement where evaluation becomes embedded into our teaching, learning and professional practice, not just a one-off task.
• Strategically aligned: Help colleagues to design evaluation plans that reflect, support and refine our strategic goals. These plans should be transparent, ethical, and methodologically sound.
• Encourage creative and inclusive methods: Promote evaluation tools and approaches that include diverse voices and perspectives, ensuring evaluation is fair, relevant, and impactful.

What can the Evaluation Advocates Network do for you?

As part of its commitment to support and enable evidence-based decision making at all levels of the University, the Evaluation Advocates Network provides practical advice, guidance and resources to help you develop your evaluation plans as well as opportunities to connect with others. The Evaluation Advocates Network:

• works with others to develop and signpost resources and guidance (e.g., case studies, lessons learned) to help you develop your evaluation plans
• delivers workshops and events that provide opportunities for you to share ideas, explore good practice and connect with others across the University
• tests new evaluation tools, methods and approaches to share what works (and what doesn’t)
• provides feedback on your evaluation plans (excluding ethics) to help you to navigate evaluation challenges (please note that opportunities for feedback are limited each month).

Becoming an Evaluation Advocate

If you are interested in joining the network and becoming an Evaluation Advocate, please find further information about the 

• Evaluation Advocates role profile
• Evaluation Advocates Network - Terms of Reference

Joining the network as a member

If you are interested in joining the network, please join the Evaluation Advocates Network Teams Channel (link below). 

• Join the Evaluation Advocates Network Teams Channel (opens in new window)

Upcoming events