What is the regional partnerships approach to evidence mobilisation?
The EEF is working with the Research School Network (RSN) to develop partnerships with the aim of helping educators to implement evidence-informed approaches using school and system leaders’ professional expertise and increasing system capacity for using evidence.
Following a nine-month period, where school and system leaders identify a shared priority, Evidence into Action partnerships are selected to implement their plans over a two-year period. This evaluation will focus on the eight Evidence into Action partnerships that started in the academic year 2025/26 and end in the academic year 2026/27.
Who is leading this project?
Each Evidence into Action partnership is led by members of the Research School Network, in conjunction with EEF, local authority and/or MAT leaders and other local system leaders.
What will this project look like in your setting?
Schools and settings will take part in a series of events and training usually aimed at a mixture of middle and senior leaders as well as classroom-based practitioners. The content will depend on the priority of the partnership but is likely to incorporate evidence-based processes for implementation and professional development. Schools and settings are expected to participate with the partnership over two academic years. The partnerships will also develop their own plans for monitoring and evaluating that schools and settings will be expected to contribute towards, as well as taking part in activities relating to the overall evaluation.
Who can take part?
Schools and settings will be invited to take part by local system leaders from the Evidence into Action partnership.
The EEF is funding the regional partnerships and its associated evaluation as there is relatively little wider evidence about complex and intensive models to support evidence use at scale. EEF has taken some steps to contribute to developing this evidence base and think it is important to continue to do so, as well as informing our learning and future mobilisation efforts.
A team led by Dr Thomas Perry from University of Warwick and joined by the University of Nottingham and Manchester Metropolitan University has been appointed to conduct the evaluation of the regional partnerships. The evaluation is a theory-based, mixed-methods design which will use empirical evidence to develop understanding of, and test, the causal pathways and assumptions in the theory of change i.e. why we think partnerships will produce the desired outcomes.
The evaluation is a mixed-methods design, including using existing monitoring and evaluation data from their self-evaluations and partnership documentation. Alongside this, independent primary data collection will focus on specific areas from Phase 2 partnerships (eight partnerships, covering 218 – 232 schools).
The Phase 2 Evidence into Action partnerships, which this evaluation is focusing on, starts from Autumn Term 2025/26 until Summer Term 2026/27. The evaluation report will be published in Spring 2028.