Date: Sunday, December 28, 2025
We are co-editors of an upcoming 2026 special issue of the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation (JMDE) on Evaluation and the Transformational Imperative: Scott Chaplowe, Ian Goldman, Sonal Zaveri, and Thania de la Garza. In this AEA365 week, we introduce the issue, share why we see a “transformational imperative” for evaluation, and invite you into a broader conversation about how evaluation can evolve in the face of today’s polycrisis. We will explore this theme throughout the week with six blogs hopefully enticing you to read the articles, coming in early 2026.
The International Evaluation Academy (IEAc) is a global movement of volunteers committed to evaluation policy influence, professionalism, and transformative impact. It seeks to build evaluation’s contribution to a more resilient, equitable, and regenerative world—one where evaluation supports evidence-informed transformational change.
A decade into the 2030 Agenda, the accelerating polycrisis has intensified what we call the transformational imperative: the urgent need for systemic change to address the complex, interdependent global challenges of our time. Schwandt’s (2019) call for “post-normal evaluation” captures this moment, underscoring that business-as-usual approaches are inadequate amid uncertainty and contradiction, and that evaluation’s added value depends not only on methodological innovation but on an ethical responsibility to the common good.
The special issue is informed by the IEAc’s Three Horizons for Evaluation Initiative (3HEi), a foresight exercise, designed to surface how evaluation must evolve across present, transitional, and emerging futures to better support transformational change. The process gathered diverse perspectives on what should be conserved, what must shift, and what new practices need to emerge. What emerged overall is explored by Zenda Ofir in the next blog. We then explore some of the issues emerging from this around embedding evaluation in government (Ian Goldman), evaluation of systems (Liliana Lucaciu), gender (Sonal Zaveri and Sibongile Sithole), feminist approaches (Donna Podems, Sonal Zaveri, Weronika Felcis, Svetlana Negroustoeva), and AI in evaluation (Silva Ferreti). These are some of the over 30 authors contributing to the special issue.
Evaluation must move beyond business-as-usual to remain relevant in the face of escalating complexity. This makes the timing of this special issue especially critical. As the Blue Marble Evaluation principle of “skin in the game” reminds us, evaluation actors themselves have a stake in the transformations needed for a just and regenerative future. A core message is that we mustn’t wait for others – those involved with evaluation (funders, commissioners, managers, evaluators, and users of evaluation) must contribute to the transformations required through field leadership, participating in active groups, and collective and transdisciplinary efforts for the transformations required. The Academy is working with EvalPartners/IOCE, IDEAS, Eval for Earth and the continental VOPEs to make this happen.
Building on these insights, a global team of authors has been engaged in collaborative inquiry around key priority topics, drawing on examples from practice, targeted synthesis of recent scholarship, and diverse lived and professional experiences across geography, generation, gender, and cultural orientation. The review process also includes relevant subject matter experts and is seeking to include an Indigenous reviewer for each article to ensure that perspective is meaningfully present.
As mentioned we are working with a constellation of actors—from those who commission and manage evaluations to those who conduct and use them, as well as those in other fields who intersect with evaluation—reflecting the IEAc’s transdisciplinary emphasis. With this in mind, this week’s blogs do not only preview themes of the upcoming issue; they also reflect individual perspectives as their authors participate in, and help shape, this ongoing journey.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on theaea365 webpageso that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by theAmerican Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.