Revisiting Evaluation as a Science

Abstract

The evaluation field needs profound changes to address the accelerating systemic imbalances, such as environmental health, social justice, equity, and financial investment and distribution, and to fulfill its role responding to the transformational imperative. Transformational and sustainable changes require rethinking its core pillars. This paper addresses evaluation’s epistemological foundations, specifically the scientific tenets that shape the field and the commensurate methodologies: objectivity, causality, predictability, and reductionism. Drawing on the social-ecological systems standpoint and Maturana’s perspective (Parsons et al., 2026, in press), this article advocates for principles aligned with the emergent systems science: the interdependence of subject and object; the focus on cascading interactions with reciprocal affection across domains; recursiveness and the emergence of complexity from interacting dynamic phenomena. These reflections extend current evaluation practice, arguing that the transformational imperative depends on a deep epistemological review grounded in scientific and philosophical principles. Furthermore, the paper proposes Theory U (Scharmer, 2016, 2018) as a tool for transformative thinking, supporting the International Evaluation Academy’s (IEAc) aspirations as expressed in its 3 Horizons (3H) initiative. Embracing these epistemological shifts can make evaluation more adaptive and better equipped to address global challenges. Evaluators must integrate these insights and align methodologies with a systems perspective to effectively tackle systemic issues.