Our Method Research Projects

The use of remote sensing data in evaluations is an effective method for measuring the effects of climate change adaptation programmes and changes in the living environment of people. This includes, for example, the measurement of the scales of natural disasters or the expansion of infrastructure.
We are developing this method further in a targeted manner in cooperation with the Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente.

The mix of public and private funding for development cooperation, also known as “blended finance”, is creating new challenges for evaluation. In recent years, DEval has contributed subject-specific and methodological expertise on measuring the impact of blended finance projects to various OECD working groups. Since 2024, it has been focusing increasingly on measuring additionality. That is because, when public funds are used to mobilise private funds for development policy objectives, it is particularly important that they are used in a way that complements, rather than displaces, private sector investment.

This project aims at advancing the systematic integration of different methods in evaluations to generate more valid and reliable evidence. Building on debates in mixed- and multi-method research, DEval aims at bringing together evaluators and academics to exchange ideas and experience on innovative ways of combining methods and to develop systematic approaches of method integration in evaluation.

With the analysis of causal mechanisms, we examine not only whether a programme works, but how and why/why not, in order to make programmes more effective. In this project, we aim to pool experience of causal mechanism approaches in complex evaluations and advance the methodological debate.