The Case for Locally-driven Implementation Research and the Shift It Demands from Funders

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

While much education research seeks to understand what works to improve learning and educational outcomes for all, there is a growing recognition of the importance of understanding how and why interventions work, for whom, and what contextual factors influence why they work. The Building Evidence in Education (BE2) Guidance Note on Using Implementation Research in Education seeks to provide guidance to governments, implementers, and funders of education programming on how implementation research can be useful to answering these questions. The guidance notes that implementation research is concerned with “why and how an intervention or reform works by considering the context, stakeholders, and process of implementation.”

For funders, this approach is crucial because it allows investments to be more targeted, adaptive, and ultimately more impactful. Thus, implementation research is a useful approach for local actors seeking to understand how an intervention works in their context, with their stakeholders, and with their implementation processes. This learning and adaptation in turn can improve implementation, and ultimately outcomes. In recent years, several initiatives have sought to fund and support implementation research led by local actors in order to better understand why and how education programming works in particular settings, while supporting local ownership of such research. This has the triple benefit of providing more accurate, contextualized insights into education programming, contributing to improved outcomes, while empowering local ownership, and fostering long-term sustainability.

However, supporting local ownership of implementation research requires a change in how funders operate. Investment is needed not just in the research itself but also in digital technologies that enable efficient data collection, collaboration with local actors, and, in some cases, exploration of how digital tools can be integrated into education systems. Such efforts to support local ownership of implementation research require investment and engagement with digital technologies, from digital data collection, to using digital technology to collaborate with local actors, to–in some cases–asking implementation research questions about the use of particular digital technologies. Initiatives supporting local actors to engage in implementation research necessarily engage in such digital technologies, and implementation research itself is a useful response to questions of how digital technologies may be useful in education, why they work or don’t work in particular contexts, and how they can be scaled more effectively.

Several of these initiatives–the uBoraBora project funded by the Gates Foundation, the Youth Excel project funded by USAID, and three implementation science projects underway at the World Bank, supported by the Foundational Learning Compact Muli-Donor Trust fund and in partnership with the What Works Hub for Global Education Programme –have positioned local actors in the lead of implementation research and engaged with them through the use of digital technologies. Furthermore, UNICEF has embedded research within systems, policies and programmes, exploring ‘what works’ and ‘how to optimally scale’. In some examples, technology was used to collect data and information, in some the implementation project used technology.

In this panel, chaired by the BE2 Secretariat, the speakers will discuss
- Why locally-led implementation research matters and how it can be used for both scaling programming and sector-wide learning;
- Present implementation research cases to demonstrate how they are making use of digital technology to support local actors’ success in implementation research, or how implementation research was used in an implementation project that leveraged technology.
- The panel will also discuss how funders need to adapt their thinking and practices to better support and learn from implementation research. It will make the case for funders to adopt flexible, long-term funding models that prioritize local capacity-building and encourage iterative learning. For funders, this means shifting away from relatively rigid project structures and embracing more adaptive, responsive funding approaches that enable faster learning loops and innovation.

Chair: Building Evidence in Education (BE2) Secretariat
Panel:
- Framing the discussion about implementation research
- UBoraBora
- Youth Excel
- World Bank - Implementation Science for Education program (ISE)
- UNICEF Innocenti

Panel presentations will be followed by a short guided panel discussion led by the FCDO-funded What Works Hub for Global Education project, which seeks to strengthen the use of implementation research amongst its partners.
The session will close with audience Q&A led by the session chair.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Maria Brindlmayer, Building Evidence in Education (BE2) / KM Excell

Individual Presentations

• Framing the discussion about implementation research in education in a digital environment - Maria Brindlmayer, Building Evidence in Education (BE2) / KM Excell

• How education systems leaders can navigate, adapt, and iterate through challenges to achieve learning reforms at scale - Marla Spivack, The World Bank Group; Shwetlena Sabarwal, World Bank

• Lessons from the uBoraBora portfolio and discussing systemic barriers to integrating research into implementation - Lea Simpson, Brink

• Embedding research into the implementation of programmes and policies to achieve learning, equity and inclusion at-scale - Linda Jones, UNICEF

Discussants

• Noam Angrist, Youth Impact; What Works Hub for Global Education, University of Oxford

• Verna Lynn Lalbeharie, EdTech Hub