Tom Callahan, Founder and Director of Human Economics offers insight into the monitoring and evaluation of the RICHeS programme
Human Economics is leading the evaluation of RICHeS for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Human Economics work on public policy issues, providing economic analysis, business case development and business strategy, as well as monitoring and evaluation support. The firm was founded by Tom Callahan in 2019 and they have worked with six of the nine UKRI research councils. They have also worked with organisations such as the University of Oxford, the UK Space Agency, the British Film Institute and the Wellcome Trust.
Human Economics have been fortunate to work with the AHRC since 2020 and in 2022, it helped AHRC to prepare for the RICHeS programme business case. They have helped AHRC identify the issues holding back the heritage science sector and have developed the detailed analysis to show the potential benefits that investment could bring so we recognise the importance and potential of the RICHeS programme to the sector and the wider research community.
Human Economics have been appointed to lead this evaluation and they are excited to see RICHeS achieve its overarching objective of delivering a generational step-change in the effectiveness, efficiency and excellence of UK heritage science. Human Economics are not working alone and have established a great team to support this project. They have brought together sector experts such as Caroline Peach, from the National Heritage Science Forum (NHSF), evaluation specialists including the Inner City Fund (ICF), social impact consultant JEM Associates and i2 Media Research, based at Goldsmiths University who are an interdisciplinary research laboratory focused on how humans and technology can work together and are designing and managing the RICHeS evaluation platform, a digital hub that Human Economics will use for their evaluation activities.
Over the coming years, Human Economics will work with the conservation and heritage science community to ensure the community understands how RICHeS is effecting change across the sector and helping (or hindering) the community in their daily work. Human Economics evaluation will run alongside the full five-year RICHeS programme and they will be reaching out to the community in the up-coming months as they develop their work, and they look forward to meeting and hearing from the conservation and heritage science community about the amazing things taking place.
For more information on Human Economics or if you would like to talk to them directly, please email: riches@humaneconomics.com
