ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will summarize the development of approaches to national evaluation and research undertaken in England by Creative Partnerships (CP) over the period 2002-2009. In our capacity as the Creative Partnerships national research team (from 2004 onwards), we have been challenged by the interrelationships and tensions between openended inquiry and the need to account, often in quite specific ways, for the programme’s impact. While these two aspects often seem to contain irreducibly complex and competing aims, we will describe approaches that have made it possible, in our view, to create a blend of investigations covering a range of themes.
