Centre for the Edge: Additional resources

Theme 1 — Evidence and evaluation

Further reading and guides for anyone interested in learning more about this topic.

1. Better Evaluation: A global hub for alternative evaluation methods, including practitioner-edited entries on contribution analysis, developmental evaluation, realist methods, outcome harvesting and many others. https://www.betterevaluation.org/

2. Thinking in Systems (Donella Meadows, Chelsea Green): A classic primer on systems-thinking, including a hierarchy of leverage points for intervening in systems: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/thinking-in-systems/

3. The Tyranny of Metrics (Jerry Z. Muller, Princeton): A short, punchy book on how a fixation on metrics can distort public services and narrow our field of view: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174952/the-tyranny-of-metrics

4. A Vision of Metascience (Michael Nielsen and Kanjun Qiu): An essay exploring the analogous challenge of scientific discovery process having become stuck in a series of local maximums: https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/

5. System Failure: Why Governments Must Learn to Think Differently (Jake Chapman, Demos, 2004): A pamphlet making the case for systems thinking in government: https://demos.co.uk/research/systemfailure2/

6. The Imaginary Crisis (and how we might quicken social and public imagination) (Geoff Mulgan): An essay on imagination as policy infrastructure: https://www.geoffmulgan.com/post/social-imagination

7. Doughnut Economics (Kate Raworth, Random House): The defining popular text on beyond-GDP framing: https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/

8. Human Learning Systems: A Practical Guide for the Curious (Toby Lowe et al., Centre for Public Impact): An open-access manual for HLS practice - a full practical guide to permissive, learning-led public-service learning: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/assets/pdfs/hls-practical-guide.pdf

9. Realist Impact Evaluation: An Introduction (Gill Westhorp, ODI): A short, plain-English practitioner guide to realist evaluation as a more complexity-aware alternative to RCTs: https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/9138.pdf

10. Participatory Futures (Nesta): A guide to running collective imagination, foresight and scenario processes inside public institutions: https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/participatory-futures/

Theme 2 — Institutional forms

Further reading and guides for anyone interested in learning more about this topic.

1. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields (Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, American Sociological Review, 1983): A foundational paper behind the institutional monoculture thesis, identifying coercive, mimetic and normative forces that drive bureaucratic homogeneity: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095101

2. Reinventing Organizations (Frédéric Laloux): A widely read taxonomy of alternative organisational forms among senior leaders, including its open-access wiki: https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/

3. The Human Handbrake: How Whitehall Culture Holds Back Public Service Reform (Amy Gandon and Anna Garrod, Demos): A recent UK report on civil service culture as an obstacle to institutional change: https://demos.co.uk/research/the-human-handbrake-how-whitehall-culture-holds-back-public-service-reform/

4. Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons (David Bollier and Silke Helfrich, New Society): A practical, readable manual for understanding commons institutions: https://freefairandalive.org/

5. Organising #BeyondtheRules (Dark Matter Labs, four-part Medium series): A first-person account of building a non-isomorphic institution, and an articulation of the idea of "hidden wiring": https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.org/organising-beyondtherules-at-dark-matter-labs-e59e4f5dd32f

6. The Decelerator: Helps British Nonprofits With Closures, Mergers, and Transitions (Iona Lawrence and Frances Armstrong, Stanford Social Innovation Review): The accessible introduction to better endings as institutional practice. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/decelerator-organization-endings

7. The Community Paradigm (Adam Lent and Jessica Studdert, New Local): A manifesto for community-powered institutional reform: https://www.newlocal.org.uk/research/the-community-paradigm/

8. Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES): The home of community wealth building in the UK, including the Preston model and the international Centre of Excellence. https://cles.org.uk/

9. The Institutional Architecture Lab (TIAL): A hub for institutional design as a discipline: https://www.tial.world/

10. OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI): An international gateway to experiments in institutional innovation across OECD governments: https://oecd-opsi.org/