Posted 17th December 2018
We are proud to announce Bath SDR (BSDR) as Partners of Social Value UK.
BSDR is a non-profit research organisation founded by a small team of researchers with the ambition to bring more research into practice. Their founders developed the QuIP – Qualitative Impact Protocol, an approach to impact assessment now curated and nurtured by BSDR, and their mission is to demonstrate and promote better standards of qualitative impact evaluation through use of QuIP.
The QuIP was designed to provide a straightforward and trusted mechanism to ask intended beneficiaries about significant drivers of change in their lives, and to analyse and present the data collected. The approach is designed to help organisations to assess, learn from and demonstrate the social impact of their work. It places intended beneficiaries’ voices at the centre of reporting, and demonstrates a genuine commitment to learning about what works and what doesn’t work. The QuIP reveals what your most important stakeholders really think is significant, without prompting them to tell you what they think you want to hear.
BSDR is a small hub of like-minded individuals at the centre of a larger network of trained associates, and aspire to stay small – keeping a strong focus on setting the QuIP standard with high quality work of their own, training others to use the approach, and continuing to write and present academic research in related areas.
We had a short chat with BSDR on becoming Social Value Partners.
Why do you think social value is important? In your organisation, your industry or in wider society?
The QuIP’s starting point is the belief that, while important, quantitative change data is rarely a sufficient source of evidence of social impact; but we know that it can be difficult to access and apply good qualitative research methods within limited budgets. It can also be difficult to convince funders that qualitative research is rigorous and reliable enough. The QuIP has been developed to try to address all these issues, creating an innovative and trusted approach that has already gained recognition by leading donors and non-governmental organisations.
The QuIP was developed in the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath, a centre known for its work on developing wellbeing indicators, and wellbeing sits at the heart of the approach.
How do you hope to work collaboratively with Social Value UK?
We hope to be able to work on developing a version of QuIP which works for SVUK members, working with SVUK on bids and research projects and offering QuIP training to members.
Fiona Remnant, Direct of BSDR said: ‘We are delighted to have partnered with Social Value UK and are excited at the prospect of working with a new and wider audience of evaluators in the UK to increase the use of qualitative methods in social impact assessment. We look forward to learning from and collaborating with practitioners who are interested in doing things differently!’
To learn more about BSDR’s social value journey please contact:
Fiona Remnant
Director
[email protected]