Evaluation and the evidence base for co-creation

The evidence base for the impact and outcomes of co-creation is surprisingly weak. After many years of research and evaluation there is a dearth of robust, widely accepted evidence. The reasons are various. They include the interconnectedness and complexity of services, making it difficult to specify and agree measurable outcomes to evaluate. Another related factor is that objectives of co-creation may not be clearly formulated. There are also different views of what counts as convincing evidence. The relational dimension of services tends to favour contextspecific, experiential forms of evidence which perfectly fit co-creation as understood by many practitioners and advocates but don’t meet the demands of governments and public agencies for validated measures and clear outcome indicators. This chapter summarises the evidence base for the impact of co-creation and related aspects of social policy such as asset-based working and personalisation. There follows an overview of the evaluations undertaken in Co-creation of Service Innovation in Europe (CoSIE) pilots (which form the basis of the empirical evidence reported in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8). University-based partners in each participating country evaluated the pilots, working closely with the local partners. Pilot evaluations were locally responsive and intended to be flexible while following broad guidelines and common reporting elements. We recognise that evaluation across the project faced challenges and limitations. There were many partners and stakeholders with varied assumptions about what counts as good information and reliable evidence. Inspired by learning from CoSIE but going beyond what the project was able to achieve in its lifetime, we proffer a new strategy for evaluation of co-creative interventions in future