Integration: What Works?

Drawing on an existing body of work, and working closely with the Open Society Institute (OSI), ISD is developing an evaluation tool tailored to the specific needs of cohesion and integration projects and initiatives. The tool aims to avoid the tendency to focus on process and outputs in the evaluation of projects in this area and instead develop a way of assessing outcomes, i.e. whether projects and activities have achieved their intended impact and made a difference to integration and cohesion on the ground.

As part of the project, ISD is providing an overview of the types of evaluation methodologies relevant to this area of policy; outlining a theory of change for social polarisation setting out what we know about what causes it and effective solutions to achieve cohesion and integration, providing an account (or typology) of the different kinds of projects, initiatives and activities that have been deployed to tackle social polarisation in order to promote cohesion and integration, which would include a series of policy and practice focused case studies. ISD will then draw on its expertise to explain what has – and hasn’t – worked and how this can be evidenced through the evaluation framework. At the close of the project, ISD will set out an evaluation method tailored specifically to the challenge of social polarisation with the aim of achieving cohesion and integration.