Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact #3 Creating a data friendly City – Tuesday 6 March 2018

What can we do to create an environment that puts the needs and rights of the individual before the need for data?

Over the last 3 years, the MEI partnership have been working with a range of stakeholders from across the data system including voluntary and community sector groups, funders and academics. Taken a solution-focused approach, the purpose of this activity has been to explore how the value and impact of voluntary and community sector activities can best be evidenced whilst safeguarding the rights of the citizen and minimising the impact of data burden on people and organisations.  This year our focus will be on evaluating projects that aim to address complex needs and systems change.  We will have examples from Community Navigation, Information Advice and Guidance and its role in producing capacity-building systems change and examples of alternative approaches to evaluating and monitoring homelessness interventions.

The new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) going live on Friday 25 May 2018 brings the above more sharply into focus. It has prompted all organisations to reflect, review and revise what data they gather, how and for what purposes. Organisations will need to explain and justify how the level of data collection they undertake with individuals is appropriate and proportionate and will require a robust data strategy that puts the information rights of individuals first.

Moving away from our own organisations, this collaborative space will be the opportunity to consider some of the issues at hand if we are to become a ‘data friendly’ city.

MEI Symposium Full Programme 2018

When: Tuesday 6 March 2018

Times: 1.30-4.30pm

Where: Edward Street Lecture Theatre, 154 Edward Street, Brighton, BN2 0GJ

Book your place

 Monitoring, Evaluating & Impact Symposium #2 meets ESRC New Practices for New Publics Seminar Series

Tuesday 20 September at City-centre Campus, University of Brighton

Lecture Theatre 105, 154 Edward Street, City Centre Campus, University of Brighton, BN2 0JG

Join us for this exciting symposium that brings together a workshop from the ESRC ‘New Practices for New Publics series’ and the opportunity to learn and reflect with the MEI partnership and voluntary and community sector colleagues on one day.  

 Book on to morning OR afternoon session. Or join us for the whole day.

Full programme here: MEI symposium programme 2016

 Part 1: New Practices for New Publics ESRC Seminar, 10am – 12.45 pm

Keynote speaker: Dr Edgar Whitley (London School of Economics)

In addition to the MEI Symposium and in collaboration with the ESRC ‘New Practices for New Publics’ seminar series we are able to offer an opportunity for VCS groups, academics and commissioners to listen to a talk and take part in a participative discussion on the ethical and legal significance of ‘privacy’ for VCS data practice with Dr Edgar Whitley from the London School of Economics.  We will use Edgar’s recent research on ‘dynamic consent’ in health research to explore ‘data practices’ and privacy issues relevant to citizens in communities.

Edgar is an academic from the London School of Economics who is a specialist in information rights and privacy.  He Coordinated the influential LSE Identity Project on the UK’s proposals to introduce biometric identity cards; proposals that were scrapped following the 2010 General Election.

There will be coffee and networking from 10.00am and the seminar will start at 10.45am. Free lunch will be offered afterwards (12.30-1.30).  The MEI symposium will take place as advertised from 1.30 – 4.30.

Booking details below. For more information on New Practices for New Publics seminar series: http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/newpracticesfornewpublics/

Part 2: MEI Symposium, 1.30pm – 4.30pm

Our second Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact (MEI) Symposium will include:

• an update on activities by the MEI Partnership
• presentations from voluntary/community organisations on good data practice
• exploration of how this can work for all stakeholders in the funding cycle
• the opportunity to development our toolkit on good practice

Join us for lunch at 12.45pm and the session will start at 1.30pm.

The MEI Partnership was formed in June 2014 in response to a capacity building need identified by voluntary and community organisations in Brighton and Hove. The partnership was initiated by Community Works, brokered by Community University Partnership Programme and responded to by the University of Brighton School of Applied Social Science. The partnership has brought together academic knowledge of data collection, analysis and research ethics with intelligence and current experience of sector needs to develop a capacity-building approach that enables community practitioner expertise and experience to come to the foreground.

For more details the MEI Partnership: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/meicommunity/

Booking details

Both parts of this event are open to all and will be of interest to community practitioners, commissioners, funders, researchers and students. You can book onto one part or both.

To book onto this event: bit.ly/MEIbooking2016

For more information: cupp@brighton.ac.uk