Five kinds of organisation. Five different decisions. One evidence standard.
A product that works in one market doesn't automatically work in the next. Before you commit a scaling budget to an assumption, we go and see.
Strategy read through the BReW framework. Entry engagements usually roll into measurement once you are live - see the mobility case study.
Which of the investments in your portfolio is actually working, in a form that travels across projects and holds up under scrutiny?
Self-reported success from grantees is rarely comparable and never independent. We measure what a portfolio changes, for whom, and through what pathway - against standard evaluation criteria, independently of the grantee. Standardised instruments turn one-off assessments into trajectories you can manage. Every figure on the dashboard has been back-checked.
Your Grant Agreement commits the consortium to monitoring, evaluation and dissemination. The funder expects proof, not intent.
Setting up channels is easy. Showing they reached anyone is hard. Done late, it becomes a scramble at the final review. The Lab sits with the consortium from start to close.
Whether the programme is working, and for whom. Not a report written to reassure the board.
We reach the people you serve, in their language and their context, and report what they actually find. We work where conventional research fails: low-connectivity, multilingual, informal, dispersed. Impact is read across reach, depth and experience - how many were touched, how materially things changed, and who was left out.
You have the design. You need a partner who can carry it into difficult field settings, with real technical understanding of the systems being studied.
Not a survey firm that treats the technology as a black box. Trained researchers who know the place and the language, working alongside people who understand how the systems work. We can run the fieldwork, design the instruments, or co-author the analysis, and hold the work to a standard that survives peer scrutiny.
Published tools live in Resources.
If this reads close to a decision you are weighing, we would like to hear about it. A short note is enough to start.
The Lab is an independent research team, not an advocacy organisation. We do not campaign, endorse products, or accept commissions where a finding is expected in advance. Where a partner's own theory of change is what needs testing, that is a legitimate engagement, and the Lab tests it honestly.
