The United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) aimed to address global challenges to achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals through 12 interdisciplinary research hubs. This research documents key lessons learned around working with Theory of Change (ToC) to guide Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) within these complex research for development hubs. Interviews and document reviews were conducted in ten of the research hubs. The results revealed that only one hub invested in an explicit visual system mapping approach, and that funder timelines, budget constraints and issues with capacity and expertise limited the application of these approaches across all hubs. In contrast, many hubs attempted to deal with visual complexity by means of ether constructing multiple, nested ToCs, or a conscious simplification of complexity through reducing their ToC towards a straightforward and uncomplicated chain model or spherical model. While the former approach had some value, most hubs struggled to find capacity to support the full articulation of nested ToCs. In contrast, the latter approach resulted in ToCs which lacked detail or mechanism articulation, but which nevertheless were often ‘fit for purpose’ in ensuring effective communication and coherence across diverse stakeholders and sub-projects. We conclude that in instances where the reporting, funding and management cycles of complex research for development programmes cannot be adapted to properly support learning-based approaches to ToC development, imposing simplicity in the ToC might be fit for purpose. This might also be preferable to more complex visual approaches that are only partially realised.

英国研究与创新 (UKRI) 全球挑战研究基金 (GCRF) 旨在通过 12 个跨学科研究中心应对全球挑战，以实现联合国 (UN) 可持续发展目标。这项研究记录了在使用变革理论 (ToC) 指导这些复杂的发展中心研究中的监测、评估和学习 (MEL) 过程中吸取的主要经验教训。在十个研究中心进行了访谈和文件审查。结果显示，只有一个中心投资于明确的视觉系统映射方法，并且资助者时间表、预算限制以及能力和专业知识问题限制了这些方法在所有中心的应用。相比之下，许多中心试图通过以太构建多个嵌套的 ToC 来处理视觉复杂性，或者通过将他们的 ToC 减少到一个简单且简单的链模型或球模型来有意识地简化复杂性。虽然前一种方法有一定的价值，但大多数中心都在努力寻找支持嵌套 ToC 完整表达的能力。相比之下，后一种方法导致 ToC 缺乏细节或机制清晰度，但通常“适合目的”以确保不同利益相关者和子项目之间的有效沟通和一致性。我们的结论是，在无法调整复杂研究开发计划的报告、资助和管理周期以正确支持基于学习的 ToC 开发方法的情况下，在 ToC 中强加简单性可能符合目的。