Applied Social & Qualitative Research
Numbers tell you what changed. Social research tells you why, and for whom. We run interviews, focus groups and participatory research that surface the lived experience behind a programme’s indicators.
What this covers
Qualitative and mixed-methods research design, field interviews, focus group discussions and participatory methods with communities, workers and local partners. Much of our work sits in fragile, culturally diverse and sensitive settings: artisanal mining communities, smallholder value chains, and places where language, custom and local power dynamics shape what people are willing to share and with whom. Reading these environments and building the trust to work in them well is one of our particular strengths.
We also carry out stakeholder mapping and consultation processes for organisations that need to understand a local context before designing a project. This groundwork often shapes the project design itself, well before any evaluation begins.
How we work
Research stays grounded in the realities of the communities and partners involved. We adapt tools to language, culture and context, and stay careful about consent, safeguarding and how findings involving real people are handled and shared.
Findings feed directly into the frameworks and reporting our MEAL work produces, keeping research insight embedded in the material programme teams actually use.