Fact sheet 2: Collaborating in evaluation

Including people with disability in evaluation helps shape the design and outcomes. Strong collaboration leads to more appropriate evaluation questions and more relevant outcomes. 

Collaboration describes a level of involvement where people with disability have the power to make decisions.

Levels of participation

This Toolkit uses 5 levels of participation based on the International Association for Public Participation’s IAP2 Spectrum.

• Empower: People with disability are owners of the project and its outcomes. They have power and are in charge of making decisions. They hold decision-making power and responsibility and lead the development of all parts of the evaluation. This can include co-creation with people with disability or when the project leader is a person with disability.
• Collaborate: People with disability are partners and can share ideas about how to improve something. This can include roles on advisory committees, co-design or co-facilitation of workshops, or when a member of the project team is a person with disability.
• Involve: People with disability provide information, advice or opinions. This can include roles on advisory committees, co-design workshops or symposiums.
• Consult: People with disability provide feedback based on their experience of a policy, program or service. This can include interviews, focus groups and surveys.
• Inform: People with disability get information to help them understand the evaluation purpose, process and findings. This can include newsletters, emails and other ways to share information.

Co-design and co-production

Co-design is a way of working together to create something new. In research, co-design involves people with lived experience working alongside researchers to shape research questions, methods, tools and outcomes. 

Co-production means sharing power through the whole research process: planning, designing, doing and evaluating.

What makes collaboration work 

The need for real collaboration is something people with disability often raise in feedback through engagement. Genuine collaboration can be achieved through co-design and co-production and sharing power with people with disability or other diverse groups. 

Co-design can be an effective way to make sure shared decision-making power with people with disability or other diverse groups. In evaluation, co-design involves people with lived experience working alongside evaluators to shape the evaluation. This includes the evaluation topic, scope, questions, methods, provide analysis and outcomes.

It’s important to recognise that it isn’t always possible or necessary to have co-design at every stage of an evaluation. Evaluators and commissioners should be transparent about the extent of stakeholders’ involvement and influence.

You can learn more about co-design and co-production on the National Disability Research Partnership’s Embedding Co-design in your Research page. The page also provides useful advice on how to make it work. Some of the information from this page is included below:

• Start early. Co-design isn’t something to add at the end. It should shape the project from the beginning.
• Build real relationships. Trust takes time. Make space for it.
• Be flexible. Co-design is not always neat and tidy. Research plans need to allow for adjustments and change.
• Share power. That means people with lived experience lead, or help lead, not just comment on plans.
• Focus on real needs. Co-design needs to address issues that are relevant to people with disability.

What authentic collaboration looks like

• Be specific. Say where and how co-design will happen in the project
• Be honest. Don’t use co-design as a buzzword if the project isn’t collaborative
• Show the impact. Explain how lived experience will shape the research
• Be realistic. Not every stage of research will be co-designed, and that can be okay