Throughout discussions, participants underscored the importance of establishing stable and appropriate systems of funding to ensure the development of tailored and accessible AI tools that meet the needs of researchers and evaluators globally. Participants also emphasised the value of creating an institutional culture that enables organisations to encourage innovation and embrace new technology, allowing progress in this area to continue despite changes in leadership and shifting priorities.
“Let’s make it very clear what our vision of success is, because we have the wind in our sails”
Promoting the value of AI. Although external interest in robust evaluation data and evidence synthesis runs in peaks and troughs, participants expressed a belief that demand for evidence and synthesis products and innovative tools to exploit these is currently high. To take advantage of this momentum and persuade funders of the importance of continued technological advancements, the value that AI tools and good KM approaches can bring to global development and foreign policy must be clearly demonstrated. Creating demand systems was positioned as central to achieving ongoing financial investment in the development of AI tools, with researchers and evaluators encouraged to agree a unified and positive narrative around the potential of AI and KM in evaluation and identify areas where successes can already be shown.
Developing appropriate funding pathways. While substantial funding commitments from UK Research and Innovation and Wellcome Trust were welcomed by participants, it was acknowledged that sustainable systems of funding are required to support continued technological developments in this area in the long-term. Participants highlighted the importance of funding mechanisms that are agile, responsive, and encourage innovation, and that offer support to researchers and evaluators in the global south to develop context-specific tools that fit their requirements.
A sustainable ecosystem. Participants acknowledged the fragility of institutional frameworks and the potential impact of political decisions upon organisational priorities; while individuals in positions of influence may be supportive of developing this agenda, momentum can be lost in the event of a change in personnel or a shift in the political environment. The importance of creating a sustainable ecosystem that incubates developments in AI and KM was underlined, with participants advocating for the distribution of responsibilities and capacities both within and across organisations and a focus on building resilience to protect the sector’s investment in AI and evaluation synthesis tools.