The Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP) Evaluation Team at the University of Southampton supports the development of evidence-informed academic practice across the Triple Helix. Our work is grounded in the University's strategic priorities and contributes to sector-wide enhancement through rigorous, ethical, and collaborative evaluation.
The CHEP Evaluation Team works across Education, Research, and Knowledge Exchange & Enterprise (KEE). We support strategic projects, research culture initiatives, and academic development activities by embedding evaluation into practice.
Our work is guided by four pillars:
1. Strategic Major Projects: Enabling the University of Southampton to evidence positive change and achieve strategic objectives by providing evaluation expertise and resources for Strategic Major Projects.
2. CHEP impact and evaluation: Supporting evidence-informed practice via the CHEP Monitoring and Evaluation Policy. Leading flagship evaluation projects to evidence the impact of academic development in line with the university strategy.
3. Enhancing evaluation values and practice:Enabling evaluation capability building across the Triple Helix via communities of practice, training and consultancy.
4. Engaging and influencing the sector:Establishing expertise in academic development evaluation and learning from sector best-practice.
Our approach
We use a cyclical and developmental approach to evaluation, based on Realist Evaluation principles (Pawson & Tilley,2013) that includes:
- Co-created Theory of Change models
- Mixed methods, including narrative and creative approaches prioritising positive change
- Building capacity and evaluation literacy through training, resources and the Evaluation Community of Practice
Our approach is designed to support reflective practice and continuous improvement.
Sector engagement and influence
We actively contribute to the wider higher education sector through:
- Scholarly publications and blogs
- Conference presentations and workshops
- Collaborative projects with national and international partners
Resources
We provide a range of resources to support evaluation practice, including:
- Theory of Change video resource
- 'How to Evaluate' toolkit
- Evaluation Community of Practice
- Ethical Scholarship of Teaching and Learning guidance
To collaborate with the CHEP Evaluation Team or access our resources, please contact us at:
CHEP@soton.ac.uk