Abstract
Generative experimentation is increasingly used in public policymaking, especially in response to wicked policy problems. A policy solution is refined within its context and informed by feedback from its users. Studies reporting on these approaches, however, rarely consider the role of evaluation and the nature and goals of knowledge produced. This article addresses evaluation in such contexts. We present a case study of a living lab that combined theory-driven and developmental evaluation, and, responding to contradictory pressures, aimed to generate both actionable and academic knowledge to improve asylum seeker reception. We describe how we addressed these diverging demands and the resulting tensions in a politically charged and substantively insecure policy context. We conclude that evaluation should be an explicit part of the broader design concept, and while generative experimenting can produce actionable learning, evaluation should also aim for academic learning, in a manner that is both democratic and robust.
Highlights
For wicked policy problems of 21st century, such as climate change and migration, policy actors find no agreement on the nature of the problem and there are no ‘off the shelf’ solutions ready to be implemented
Public policymaking is moving from traditional ways of planning and implementation towards generative experimenting (Considine, 2012; Kimbell and Bailey, 2017)
Studies reporting on living labs and design experiments tend to divert more attention to the design process, than to the method of evaluation
Summary
For wicked policy problems of 21st century, such as climate change and migration, policy actors find no agreement on the nature of the problem and there are no ‘off the shelf’ solutions ready to be implemented. Through a door to door survey and interviews we learned that the neighbourhood became more knowledgeable of the ASC and that hostility towards the centre was initially lower than commonly understood This understanding, combined with a deeper integration of partners’ theories with academic research on public reception to asylum seeker reception led to an important recommendation that while communication strategies should be respectful of hostility as a public response, they should not be led by the assumption that this was the dominant response. Summarizing, our evaluation approach in the living lab offered three specific advantages for gaining academic knowledge (Table 2) These are gaining evidence on the plausible contribution of the concept on the basis of measured changes over time, building in the real-world setting of in which interventions are tested and ecological validity, and triangulation of research methods and internal validity. We kept our focus on the more granular level of analysis and we would leave broader evaluative claims to others
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