Evaluation on Achieving Results at Scale

IDRC requests proposals for a Consulting team to undertake an evaluation on achieving results at scale.

IDRC’s first strategic objective in its Strategic Plan for 2015-2020 states that IDRC will “Invest in knowledge and innovation for large-scale positive change.” We committed to generating, identifying and testing scalable ideas and innovations, further supporting those with implementation potential, and connecting solutions with actors who can help advance those solutions to achieve large-scale impact. We committed to documenting our results on this objective and learning about critical success factors in scaling research results to impact that matter for development. Coming at the end of this 2015-2020 period, this evaluation will assess IDRC’s strategies and results related to this strategic objective.

IDRC highly values learning from evaluation. We anticipate this study will provide important insights that will be used by IDRC’s Board of Governors, management, staff and grantees to improve our thinking and practice. Given the wide-spread importance on scaling solutions to improve the lives of people and the planet, we anticipate that the evaluation findings will be shared broadly. We are looking for a set of thoughtful, creative and energetic consultants to work with us.

OBJECTIVES

The evaluation is intended to:

• Assess results to scale the impact of research for development;
• Provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of past and current programming in order to improve future IDRC corporate, program and project-level strategies; and
• Consolidate learning from IDRC’s experience to share with grantees and other research organizations who wish to strengthen the impact of their work at appropriate scales.

IDRC anticipates this evaluation will require a team of consultants. The team should include expertise on issues of scale, scalability and scaling in addition to substantial experience implementing complex high quality evaluations. A team with members from multiple regions of the world would be particularly welcome, with substantial understanding of the contexts in which IDRC research is carried out. IDRC welcomes proposals from firms as well as groups of individuals.

Requirements are described in section 2, the Statement of Work (“Services”).