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The Evaluation Capacity Case Challenge (EC³) launched in 2023 and is dedicated to strengthening the evaluation capacity of institutions to foster and sustain high-quality evaluation practice. Every year, a real-world organization presents an evaluation capacity building (ECB) challenge to teams comprising the best and brightest minds from across the U.S. and Canada. These ECB teams then develop a plan to address the challenge and present it to a panel of esteemed judges. This year the challenge will take place on May 1 & 2, 2026.

Over the past three years we have convened almost 60 students and early career professionals from Canada and the US to develop innovative, yet practical, strategies to enhance organizations’ capacities to support high-quality evaluation practice. As part of EC³ we have examined the following questions for organizations in a variety of sectors:

• 2023, City of Kingston (Canadian municipal government): How can we build an organizational culture where evaluative questioning is embedded in our everyday work, barriers to engaging in evaluation are addressed, and evaluative insights are used to inform decisions and promote equality?"
• 2024, Fraser Health Authority’s Virtual Health Department (Canadian provincial government): How do we lay the foundation for embedding sustainable evaluation practice and the ongoing use of evaluation findings within the Virtual Health Department?
• 2025, Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM) (U.S. non-profit organization): How can we enhance our capacity to nurture stronger, more regular, dialogue across the organization to interpret evaluation findings with context in mind, thereby making more effective use of evaluation and its associated tools in supporting the design and implementation of BEAM programming?

Participants in EC³ come from a diverse array of academic and professional backgrounds. What they have in common is a thirst for knowledge and excitement for learning about techniques to support high-quality evaluation and learning in organizations.

• Participants have majored or worked in a variety of areas – the most common disciplines are education, public health, evaluation, and public policy with a range of other areas represented including (but not limited to) agriculture, human development, social work and public affairs.
• Several participants were in graduate school (60%) at the time of the challenge, but many were early-career professionals (30%), and a few did both (10%).
• Individual level of knowledge about evaluation varies extensively – some are new to evaluation whereas others have worked in the field for several years or have advanced degrees in evaluation. The large majority in the past two years have not received training in the area of evaluation capacity building prior to engaging in EC³. This creates a rich environment for acquiring new knowledge and skills, sharing knowledge and experiences between peers, and developing innovative strategies for the case site.

The connections made through EC³ continue well after the challenge ends. By participating in EC³ you become part of a larger network of individuals interested in, and excited by, evaluation capacity building! Here is a snapshot of some of the things we have done together after the challenge…

• Co-authored about EC³
• Presented at the Canadian Evaluation Society conference on EC³
• Authored an about their EC³ experience
• Alumni have continued their participation in EC³ by
  • Reviewing applications to select the incoming cohort
  • Serving on the judging panel during the EC³ event
  • Mentoring EC³ teams
• Participants have also been invited by others engaged in EC³ to present their research on evaluation in university courses, conduct research on evaluation studies, plan and implement evaluations of educational programs, co-deliver workshops, and more!

The Max Bell School of Public Policy’s Evaluation Capacity Case Challenge (EC³) is made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Sydney Duder with additional support from the  at the University of Alberta.

For questions contact: mbspp.casechallenge [at] mcgill.ca