Dynamic Evaluation Protocol Unveiled for Global Climate and Health Research Initiative

The Advancing Research for Climate and Health (ARCH) global initiative has introduced a study protocol for Dynamic Evaluation, an evaluative framework designed to support collective learning, adaptation, and responsible scaling within complex climate-health systems. Climate change poses urgent and unevenly distributed risks to health, yet research addressing climate and health remains underdeveloped and under-representative of low- and middle-income country contexts. To address this gap, the ARCH initiative supports a regional network of researchers working to strengthen climate-resilient primary health care and health systems. Because the initiative is structured to cultivate an emerging interdisciplinary field and foster systems-level change across diverse settings, conventional monitoring and evaluation approaches are considered unlikely to provide the necessary adaptive foresight, learning, accountability, and strategic feedback.

Drawing upon the International Development Research Centre’s work in cultivating the field of Scaling Science, the initiative implements Dynamic Evaluation by fostering a mindset of collective, inclusive learning across multiple levels. This approach operates through a decentralized, participatory structure using working groups that align with a nested Theory of Change. The evaluation framework is organized around four core components: purposes, priorities, people, and processes. Together, these components define learning objectives that extend beyond conventional learning and accountability roles, establish “springboard” learning questions to guide evaluative inquiry, create participatory governance arrangements linking local, regional, and global levels, and implement adaptive processes for foresight reflection, sense-making, and accountability.

The protocol explicitly incorporates ethical and capacity considerations essential for sustaining inclusive participation and adaptive decision-making within complex systems. Drawing upon practical examples from ARCH’s regional hubs—encompassing West and Central Africa, East and Southern Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa—the framework illustrates how Dynamic Evaluation operationalizes a continuous cycle of conjecturing, reflection, sense-making, and accountability. Rather than functioning as an extractive, top-down snapshot evaluation, the approach aims to cultivate an ongoing learning system across individual projects, regional hubs, and program governance spaces.

Within the ARCH initiative, Dynamic Evaluation is designed to strengthen the continuous collective “evaluative muscle” required to identify emerging change, apply evidence toward scaling impact, adapt operational strategies in complex climate-health systems, distribute knowledge across local, regional, and global actors, and link learning directly to accountability by making progress, uncertainty, trade-offs, and adaptation visible. However, literature examining communities of practice, boundary crossing, and adaptive development identifies significant implementation risks. Evaluative processes can become performative compliance exercises, fail to bridge institutional and disciplinary boundaries, or face constraints stemming from funder expectations, incentives, limited time, and capacity. Consequently, the value of the Dynamic Evaluation framework will depend on whether these processes foster the trust, autonomy, feedback loops, and decision space required for evidence to actively shape strategy, institutional relationships, and responsible scaling choices.

Subject of Research: Dynamic evaluation protocol for climate and health systems research

Article Title: Dynamic Evaluation of climate and health field-building and system-strengthening: a protocol for the Advancing Research for Climate and Health global initiative

Article References: Hearn, S., Smith, M., Armah, F. A., Jurdi, M., Muchangi, M., Polo Infante, G., Su, T. T., Corredor, J. A., Muhula, S., Khodor, R., Olaya, D., Sam, N. E., Soumahoro, M.-K., Tajudin, M. A. B. A., Brown, L. L., Gopfert, A., Gray, H., Oti, S., Kamal, M., & McLean, R. K. D. (2026). Dynamic Evaluation of climate and health field-building and system-strengthening: a protocol for the Advancing Research for Climate and Health global initiative. Health Research Policy and Systems. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-026-01543-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12961-026-01543-9

Keywords: climate change, public health, Dynamic Evaluation, health systems, study protocol, Scaling Science, primary health care, global health, Dynamic, Evaluation, climate, health