Marina Apgar
Research Fellow in Participation, Inclusion and Social Change at the Institute of Development Studies & Co-Convenor of the Centre for Development Impact
Background
Marina Apgar is a human ecologist and interdisciplinary researcher, with expertise in complexity theory and action research methodologies. She works on equitable and sustainable pathways to development through her methodological innovation at the intersection of equity and systems change.
She has recently led evaluation research in large participatory research programmes, including the CLARISSA systemic action research programme on the worst forms of child labour, and the Vestibule de la Paix participatory peace building programme in Mali.
She has published widely on participatory evaluation, and how to reframe rigour to navigate complexity, and convenes professional development courses on Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation for Learning, Contribution Analysis for Impact Evaluation and Assessing the Strength of Evidence. She accompanies organisations working on systems change as they build, test and use meaningful monitoring and evaluation systems.
At the School of System Change
Marina is a contributor on the Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) Learning & Practice Series in 2024/2025.
"We are finally at a point where we can begin to make sense of how participation can reconfigure relationships in systems in different conditions and different ways, opening up huge potential for emancipatory pathways to systems change."
