Workshop: Building a Theory of Change for Your Research | Michael Aird | EAG DC 22
Apr 1, 2023
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Michael Aird discusses the importance of developing a theory of change for research to enhance impact and career progression. He covers key concepts like paths to impact, stakeholders, and effective research project planning and execution. The workshop provides strategies to connect research to tangible actions and decision-makers, ensuring research is insightful and actionable.
Developing a theory of change enhances research impact and career growth.
Optimizing research involves balancing specific knowledge and transferable skills for impact.
Deep dives
Development of Theories of Change for Research Impact
Developing an explicit theory of change can enhance the impact of research while improving career trajectory. The workshop emphasizes understanding theories of change, their usefulness in research, and the process of building one. It highlights common ways research projects can fail to be highly impactful, including being accurate but irrelevant or hard for key decision-makers to use. By applying theories of change, researchers can avoid common pitfalls and strive for maximum positive impact.
Pathways to Impact Via Research Work Itself
Research work can impact the world through influencing decisions and activities in various domains. These include influencing other research, funding decisions, policies, careers, and technology research and development. By considering decision-makers and stakeholders, researchers can optimize the pathways to impact of their work, ensuring relevance and effectiveness in creating positive changes.
Dimensions of Theories of Change Variation
Theories of change differ along various dimensions, such as back chaining versus forward chaining, explicit past impact versus speculative curiosity, and being other-directed versus self-directed. By understanding and navigating these variations, researchers can tailor their approaches to project planning, strategic focus, and impact assessment. Balancing the dimensions over time is key to optimizing research outcomes.
Optimizing Research for Skills and Impact
Optimizing research for skill-building and impact involves a strategic balance between developing transferable skills and acquiring specific knowledge relevant to a chosen cause area. Researchers are encouraged to focus on concrete, decision-relevant questions within their cause area of interest while honing transferable skills. Learning value should be maximized by combining specific insight-building with the acquisition of transferable competencies.
Research can be hugely impactful, but almost all research isn't. One thing that can help maximize the impact of your research — including via improving your career trajectory — is developing an explicit theory of change. In this workshop, Michael provides an overview of what theories of change are, why they’re often useful for research, how to build one, and will provide an opportunity to practice applying these concepts. (It’s helpful, though not required, to watch the workshop with a research project idea in mind.)
Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.
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