Creating a theory of change
Theory of Change (ToC)
A theory of change is a step by step plan of how you’ll achieve impact with your research project. We think building a theory of change is one of the most important things you can do to increase the value of your research, but it often isn’t taught in universities.
Key points
A theory of change is a step by step plan of how you’ll achieve impact with your research project. We think building a theory of change is one of the most important things you can do to increase the value of your research, but it often isn’t taught in universities.
We think building a theory of change at the beginning of your project is highly valuable.
By setting out how you plan to achieve the goals of your research project, it will likely be easier to improve your plan and keep updating it as new information arises.
The key components of a theory of change are:
the context you’re doing your research project in (e.g. what problem are you addressing, what key work is already being done and by who?).
the impact you’re hoping to have (e.g. how do you want your research to affect the world in the short- and long-term? Do you want to influence specific decision-makers, build your expertise, create a foundation for further research, or something else?)
the outputs you aim to produce (e.g. what research question do you plan to answer and how will you share your research findings?).
the assumptions you’re making at each stage (e.g. are there steps you could think through more clearly? What are the key factors that your impact depends on?)
Watch Michael Aird’s workshop on building a Theory of Change
This post draws on a number of sources which are listed at the end. The key source that we draw on is the workshop below from researcher Michael Aird of Rethink Priorities.
If you prefer a video format we strongly recommend watching the workshop, as most of the key ideas in this post are covered in the workshop. Here’s the worksheet that accompanies the workshop.
How can you increase the chance your research makes a positive difference?
Research has the power to transform the world in a number of ways, but a lot has little or no impact, even if it’s great research. For example, your research could be well-written, accurate and exploring a highly important topic, but if there aren’t any stakeholders whose actions might be informed by your research (your future self counts, too!) then from the perspective of improving the world, your research probably won’t have much or any impact.
To maximise the chance your research has a positive impact on the world, it should be:
Accurate
Clearly written
Relevant to important topics
Relevant to important decisions
Easy for key decision-makers to use
Seen by key decision-makers
In this post we’ll explore how creating a theory of change can increase the chance your research is relevant to important topics and decisions, and reaches and is used by relevant stakeholders.
What is a theory of change?
Your theory of change is your plan for how your research will have an impact on the world. Alternatively, it’s a way of avoiding this!
To increase the chance that your research improves the world, consider the impact you are aiming for from the start of your project. This will help you make sure you’re working towards valuable, realistic goals, identify potential challenges in advance and spot any gaps in your plan.
Which research question to work on and which sub-questions to prioritise: For example, you might choose a question in collaboration with stakeholders or optimise for spending time testing your fit or building your skills.
How long to spend on a given line/piece of research: This may be affected by timelines from your stakeholders, important conferences or other opportunities, or whether you are primarily doing research to gain credentials or build expertise.
Whether and how to disseminate your findings: Different stakeholders will prefer different formats – for example, a short policy brief or a workshop might help get your findings to policy-makers.
Whether, when and how to assess your progress and impact: You might want to reflect on your own experience or talk to stakeholders to assess the impact of your project. Alternatively your research might be highly speculative or curiosity-driven and most of its potential impact might be hard to immediately assess.
What are the key components of a theory of change?
There’s no single way to build a theory of change, and there are many resources out there that could help you create more detailed theories of change than we’ll discuss here. If you want to learn more, see the resources at the end of this post.
Some key concepts that can help you create a theory of change are:
The key components of a theory of change are:
Context: What is the problem you’re responding to? What is already being attempted? Who are the stakeholders who might be affected by or respond to your research?
Impacts: What are the short-term and long-term changes that you hope your research will bring about or contribute to?
Outputs: What research and other outputs will you produce to try to bring about these changes, in what forms will you communicate them and to who?
Assumptions: What assumptions are you making at each stage of your theory of change?
Below are some very simple examples of theories of change (we’ll discuss how to make your theory of change more concrete and specific later).
Practice building a theory of change
Before you read further, we suggest you take 10 minutes to pick a research project (this can be a research project you’re working on, did in the past or want to do in future), and sketch out a simple theory of change based on the four steps above.
You could practise creating separate theories of change for the same project, focusing on different impacts. For example, the same research project (or a variation on it) could help you:
increase your knowledge and expertise for later in your career.
aim to influence the decisions made by a particular stakeholder.
create a foundation for you to build on yourself with a subsequent research project.
You could also try adjusting your research question to be more basic or applied and exploring how this affects your theory of change. See the worksheet here for some more prompts you can use.
More on building a theory of change
Keep reading to learn more about creating a theory of change. As you learn more, we recommend returning to a theory of change you sketched earlier and considering whether you can make it more detailed, notice and identify ways of testing key assumptions, and add additional ideas for impacts your research could create.
Further resources
Resources that we drew on to write this piece:
Building a Theory of Change for your Research, Michael Aird of Rethink Priorities
A theory of change approach to research uptake, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a one-page overview of building a theory of change. We recommend it as an alternative perspective to this post!
ESPA guide to working with Theory of Change for research projects goes into much more detail about the questions you could ask at different stages of building your theory of change.
