OMLC Learning Lab 2025 | Outcome Mapping

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Enhancing participatory, learning-oriented MEL in an age of bricolage

Join us at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025 to explore bricolage: the practice of blending parts of methods, tools and ways of thinking!

1-3 December, 2025. Citrus Waskaduwa, Sri Lanka.

The Learning Lab will be a space for practitioners of Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting and other participatory, learning-oriented and methods. Through sharing our experiences and case studies, we will explore how combining well known and emerging approaches can lead to more meaningful, rigorous insights into systems-change processes. We will also reflect on how to foster meaningful participation and learning in MEL practice.

Why focus on bricolage of participatory, learning-oriented MEL for systems-change?

Growing enthusiasm for approaches to MEL that can help us grapple with complexity, requires moving debates and practice beyond the selection of single method options.
Making sense of the methodological landscape: the context for each MEL application informs which methodological blends are appropriate, yet the number of potential methods to draw on is vast.
Each method has its strengths, and limitations, such as needing to monitor change beyond the sphere of influence when OM is your primary method, or when you need to monitor attitude change when OH is your primary method.
Various methods have differing views on causality and knowing. Some may be complementary, others not. How can we make sense of the options?
Credibility and rigour of such methods is often challenged yet can be enhanced through bricolage.

Over three days by the sea in Sri Lanka, we will engage in a dynamic mix of expert-led sessions, practical cases from participants, and open space dialogues, co-creating knowledge, surfacing questions, and challenging assumptions.

We welcome all - practitioners at any level, academics, MEL practitioners in organisations, consultants, and methods enthusiasts - who want to explore bricolage for systems change.

The programme will be finalised after receiving feedback from participants based on their potential contributions and interests. As well as pre-planned sessions, space will be kept free for emerging topics. The three days will look something like (subject to change)...

Monday - we connect, share our values and experiences and engage with promising cases of bricolage.
Tuesday - we continue to explore bricolage cases and processes, wrestling with our collective questions and challenges. We finish the day off with conversations and connections at a social event.
Wednesday - we provide space for common interests and opportunities on the ‘frontiers of practice’. We grapple with remaining questions and package our learning to support others into the future.

The programme will not include introductions to methods as we assume all participants will have experience with one or more relevant methods. Optionally, we hope to be able to offer short introductions online to the topic of Bricolage and methods such as OM, OH and MSC. So keep an eye out for introductions and teasers offered prior to the Learning Lab in Sri Lanka!

If you are interested in training in Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting then you are in luck. We are hosting a training in Sri Lanka the week before the Learning Lab. Please see here for full details.

Registration is open to all

Apply now

Step 1: Apply for registration by completing the application form by 16 October 2025.

This will help us understand your interests and potential contributions.

Step 2: If your application is approved, you will receive an approval email and instructions on how to pay the registration fee. Fees have to be paid within 15 days to secure your place.

Step 3: Upon receipt of fees you will be sent an invitation letter and a link to complete your registration.

Step 4: If your registration includes accommodation then you will receive a booking confirmation after you have completed registration.

Registration includes

Three-day Learning Lab programme
Lunches and refreshments on workshop days
An evening welcome reception
Course materials
Pre-event online sessions
Four nights' accommodation and airport transfers (optional*)

* Accommodation is limited. Rooms will be booked on a first come first served basis.

Registration fees

With accommodation and transfers

Without accommodation and transfers

Full fee (regular rate )

Full fee (reduced rate )

Early bird fee (regular rate)

Early bird (reduced rate)

EUR 1050

EUR 570

EUR 875

EUR 475

EUR 660

EUR 180

EUR 550

EUR 150

Choose reduced rate if you consider yourself from the global south or working with a national / local non-profit organisation.
Choose regular rate if you consider yourself from the global north or working in an international organisation, funder, consultancy or private sector (you will be helping to support participants from the global south or those working in national / local non-profit organisations)
Early bird fee rate is available until 30 September 2025.

Lab Scholarship

With support from Humanity United and the International Development Research Centre, we are offering a limited number of Lab Scholarships.

Lab Scholarships cover full registration fees, four nights' accommodation, and travel costs (return airfare and airport transfers.

If you are an IDRC grantee then you way wish to consider applying for grantee reserved sponsorship instead of Lab Scholarship.

Eligibility criteria

Applicants from any country are welcome but priority will be given to applicants from South Asia and other low- and middle-income countries.
Priority will be given to applicants working in or with community based, local and national organisations although other applicants are welcome.
Applicants should be able to specify what experiences, learning or challenges related to bricolage they can bring into the event (e.g. combining parts of methods, supplementing methods with tools from other methods, participatory design of methods).
Applicants should be able to describe how this event will be beneficial for them and their organisation or project.
Applicant must be willing to contribute their particular skills to help with the running of the workshop (e.g. photography, social media, notetaking, journaling, illustration, games, interviews etc).

Application process

Apply for Lab Scholarship by filling in the application form before August 31st.
Applications will be reviewed by the organising committee between 1-14 September. You will be notified of our decision on 15-16 September.
If you are successful you will be asked to register within 7 days. After registering you receive information about hotel and air travel booking.
If you are unsuccessful, you will still have the opportunity to register for the event with the early-bird rate.

Apply now

This event is for anyone curious about methods for evaluation, monitoring and learning for systems change

We welcome practitioners at any level, academics, MEL specialists in organisations, consultants, and methods enthusiasts; anyone who wants to explore bricolage for systems change.

If you identify with any of the personas below then this event is for you.

Are you a...

black-silhouette-of-an-ivy-branch-botani

Bricolage tree

Do you routinely and systematically blend ideas and tools from different methods in your MEL practice, and are interested to share and exchange with others and explore complementarities and incompatibilities in the epistemology (ways of knowing) and ontology (underlying assumptions about reality and causality) inherent in different methods and the implications for your practice?

Bricolage vine

Perhaps you instinctively combine parts of methods but without reference to any framework for deciding when and how to do so, and are curious to share what has worked for you and systematiseand the systematise your practice by learning from others?

Bricolage shrub

Have you thought about, read about, heard stories about, or even started to blend ideas and tools from different methods in your MEL practice, and want to take this further but face practical challenges / questions about deciding when and how to do so in real-world situations?

Bricolage seedling

Do you generally adapt single methods in your MEL practice but are curious to develop your MEL practitioner capabilities by exploring a more fluid approach by blending ideas and tools from various methods?

Bricolage canopy

Are you supporting or influencing MEL practice at an institutional level—designing frameworks, guiding teams, or shaping donor requirements—and looking to create space for methodological blending while managing constraints of standardization and accountability?

Please note that this is not a training event and we assume that you are coming with knowledge and experience of monitoring, evaluation and learning approaches. If you are looking for training in Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting then this event may be for you.

Event news and announcements

Warm up Webinar: Bricolage and implications for Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting

Jun 12
2 min read

Updated: Jul 1

This webinar will launch the theme of the OMLC Learning Lab 2025, our flagship event later this year: Bricolage, the blending together of parts of methods, tools and ways of thinking.

In this webinar, we talk with Marina Apgar and Tom Aston, authors of the paper which inspired the theme: The Art and Craft of Bricolage in Evaluation. They will introduce us to the history and conceptualisation of bricolage in the evaluation field, and discuss the big questions and unresolved practice dilemmas which bricolage leads us to. We hope to facilitate a discussion with participants on what this means for the OMLC and the practice of OM and OH.

Marina Apgar is the co-director of the Centre for Development Impact and Leader of the Participation, Inclusion and Social Change Research Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies. She is a human ecologist with 20 years’ experience working at the intersections of research, evaluation and social change with marginalised communities, civil society actors and funders in the context of international development. She is passionate about methodological bricolage as a response to complexity and as a mechanism for meaningful participation and inclusive rigour in evaluation.

Thomas Aston is a monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) specialist. He has 18 years’ experience and has worked across many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. He previously worked as a governance advisor and currently specialises in theory-based and participatory approaches to evaluation. He holds a PhD in Development Planning. He is an Editorial Advisory Board Member at the Evaluation Journal and an Honorary Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Hosts: Esther Kihoro and Simon Hearn

Discussants: Mariam Smith and Richard Smith

Register now

Announcing: Two OMLC events for your diary

Jun 5
1 min read

Updated: Jul 1

1-3 December, Sri Lanka

OMLC Learning Lab 2025: Enhancing participatory, learning-oriented MEL in an age of bricolage

For the first time in over a decade, the OMLC is hosting a face-face learning lab, this time on the theme of bricolage: the practice of blending parts of methods, tools and ways of thinking.

The Learning Lab will be a space for practitioners of Outcome Mapping, Outcome Harvesting and other participatory, learning-oriented and methods. Together, we will explore how combining well known and emerging approaches can lead to more meaningful, rigorous insights into systems-change processes. We will also reflect on how to foster meaningful participation and learning in MEL practice.

Registration opens 25th June.

Sponsorships: support will be available for qualifying participants; look out for a future announcement

7 July, free online webinar

OMLC Webinar: Bricolage and implications for Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting

To launch the theme of the Learning Lab, we're hosting a free webinar to explore bricolage. We’ll be talking with Marina Apgar and Tom Aston, authors of the paper which inspired the theme: The Art and Craft of Bricolage in Evaluation.

Date: 7 July: 08:00 Eastern Time, 12:00 Accra, 13:00 London, 14:00 Brussels, 15:00 Nairobi, 17:30 Colombo

Registration details coming next week!

Save the date announcement for OMLC Learning Lab 2025

Sign up to hear first

Enhancing participatory, learning-oriented MEL in an age of bricolage

Event news and announcements

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OMLC Learning Lab 2025: Enhancing participatory, learning-oriented MEL in an age of bricolage

​

OMLC Webinar: Bricolage and implications for Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting

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