Policy Watch: Evaluation in Federal FY 2025 R&D Priorities and Announcing EPTF New Members!

By: Katie O’Toole, Consultant for Evaluation Policy Task Force

Evaluation for evidence-building included as R&D priority in FY2025

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum (M-23-20) to agency heads in August outlining the Administration’s multi-agency research and development (R&D) priorities to inform the development of agency budget requests for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. The memo instructs agencies to address the identified priorities in their budget submissions – of note, OMB specifically highlighted the need for agencies to design and implement program evaluations to generate evidence.

In response, AEA sent a letter to agency heads, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Evaluation Officers, Chief Data Officers, and Statistical Officials applauding the inclusion of evaluation in the Administration's R&D priorities and calling on every agency to include new resources to support this priority in budget submissions to OMB. The wide range of recipients of the AEA letter demonstrates the critical, cross-agency function of evaluation in federal agencies, and emphasizes that the capacity within agencies to conduct and use evaluation is central to achieving agencies’ missions and should be prioritized appropriately in funding requests.

While OMB memorandum M-23-20 points to evaluation specifically as a mechanism for reducing barriers and inequality, AEA’s letter also urged agencies to consider that program evaluation can and should be a fundamental component of all the research and development efforts noted in the memorandum. AEA recommended agencies dedicate broader attention to evaluation to ensure necessary coordination of evidence activities across priority areas.

The integration of evaluation in OMB’s priority memo is encouraging for the evaluation community – and AEA will continue to engage in opportunities to strengthen the generation and use of evaluation to inform federal policies and decision-making in the future.

EPTF welcomes four new members

The Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF), AEA’s driving force on federal evaluation policy, selected four new members: Christina Yancey, Esther Nolton, Margaret Hargreaves, and Ted Kniker. These individuals bring extensive expertise and contribute greatly to expanding the diversity of skills, representation, and professional experience included on the Task Force.

EPTF placed a call for new member nominations in May and received many highly qualified candidates. The Task Force is thrilled to have such well-respected members and leaders in the evaluation community join its effort to advocate for improving evaluation capacity within the federal government.

• Christina Yancey, PhD, is the Vice President of Workforce Development at American Institutes for Research and an expert in workforce and labor evaluation as well as evaluation policy. As the former Evaluation Officer at the Department of Labor and former member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building established by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act), Yancey offers substantial insight into evaluation policy and governance within the federal government.
   
• Esther Nolton, PhD, MEd, is a Program Officer at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute where she leads the development and implementation of evaluation culture and capacity-building strategies and evaluation policies. Active in the evaluation community, Nolton previously served as Program Chair for AEA’s Evaluation Policy Topical Interest Group (TIG), was an AEA Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) scholar, and served as the former President of the Washington Evaluators. Beginning in 2024, Nolton will also start a three-year term as an AEA Board Member-at-Large. With previous experience in evaluation strategy and planning at the National Science Foundation, Nolton brings both public sector and non-profit experience to the EPTF.
   
• Margaret (Meg) Hargreaves, PhD, is a Senior Fellow in Healthcare Evaluation at NORC at the University of Chicago. Hargreaves recently completed an evaluation contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to build Evidence Act capacity government-wide and brings decades of experience working with administrators and policymakers conducting evaluations at local, state, and federal levels.
   
• Ted Kniker is the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President at IMPACT Paradigm Associates, bringing vast experience with building evaluation capacity in government. Kniker previously spent 25 years working in government, and successfully established multiple evaluation offices in the federal agencies, including at the Department of State, Peace Corps, and Department of Agriculture. Kniker has also held leadership positions at AEA, including as the former chair for the Government Evaluation TIG and chair of the EPTF’s internal evaluation committee.

Christina, Esther, Meg, and Ted join the current members of the EPTF, which include: Demetra Nightingale, Diana Epstein, Gregory Phillips II, Katherine Dawes, Kathryn Newcomer, Kerry Bruce, Leslie Fierro, Lisa Aponte-Soto, Melvin Mark, Maurice Samuels, Nick Hart (Chair), and Nicole Bowman.

AEA Welcomes the 20th Graduate Education Diversity Internship Cohort  

AEA is proud to announce the 20th cohort of scholars selected for the Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI). GEDI leadership carefully chose these exceptional individuals who represent the future of evaluation experts and champions of culturally responsive evaluation. We extend a warm welcome and congratulations to these scholars. Meet the 2023-2024 GEDI Cohort!

We are also thrilled to announce the selection of two new GEDI Co-Directors, Dr. Lisa Aponte-Soto (GEDI 6, Evolution) and Dr. Monique Liston (GEDI 12, District 13), both alumni of the GEDI Program. Dr. Aponte-Soto is affiliated with Tanoma Consulting, LLC, while Dr. Liston is associated with UBUNTU Research and Evaluation. Each will join current GEDI Co-Director Dr. Saúl I. Maldonado in leadership of the GEDI program.

Liston and Aponte-Soto succeed Dr. Brandi Gilbert who served as Co-Director from 2017-2023 and will serve as the Professional Development Coach for GEDI scholars.

AEA Welcomes the 2023-2024 Minority Serving Institution Fellowship Cohort 

The American Evaluation Association (AEA) is proud to announce the 2023-2024 cohort of fellows selected for the Minority Serving Institution Fellowship (MSI). These highly accomplished individuals from and/or serving traditionally underrepresented groups in the fields of applied social sciences, public health, and education at a Minority Serving Institution were selected by an advisory group comprised of alumni of the MSI Fellowship. Congratulations to them on this significant achievement. Meet the 2023-2024 MSI Cohort!

We encourage you to support the AEA Giving Campaign to help increase the participation of evaluators and academics from and serving underrepresented groups in the profession of evaluation and within AEA. Your contribution can truly make a difference.

AEA Publishing Corner

Share your accomplishments with AEA! We are excited to introduce the AEA Publishing Corner, which will spotlight work published by our members. If you have a recent publication or professional accomplishment you would like to share, please submit it here.

This month we are spotlighting Susan Wolf who recently published Guidebook to Community Consulting: A Collaborative Approach. This book is published by Cambridge University Press. 

International Evaluation Events

There are numerous international evaluation events taking place in the coming months. You can find more international events on the Better Evaluation website.

Asia-Pacific Evaluation Association
4th APEA Conference & Evalvisionasia 2023
Manila, Philippines, 4–7 December 2023
Learn More

Save the date- African Evaluation Association (AfrEA)
11th AfrEA International Conference
Kigali, Rwanda, 18–22 March 2024
Learn More