Welcome to the Neighbourhood

The EQ’s launch event

On the evening of 7th October 2021, we were thrilled to host our Welcome to the Neighbourhood event in The Evidence Quarter. A year and a half after The EQ first opened, we were finally able to welcome the wider Network into our home and celebrate all that has been achieved despite the challenges of the pandemic.

Over the past 18 months, the number of people physically based in The EQ office has grown from 60 to 95 and due to demand we have trebled our number of meeting rooms. We have developed an online community with over 150 members, and we have built an 80-person hybrid event space that can be booked by our members and the What Works Network. We have hosted 17 cross-EQ virtual events and are so excited for this to be the first of many in-person ones! 

This was The EQ’s first large-scale event and it was open to all EQ members, What Works Centre employees and members of the Government’s Evaluation Taskforce. Our aim was to create an opportunity to meet others from across the Network and hear more about the current and future work of some of the Centres.

The evening opened with a welcome speech from Prof. David Halpern and The EQ’s organisations set up stalls across both sides of the office to showcase their brilliant work and build connections over drinks. The event was a huge success, with 80 attendees from over 20 organisations and many valuable discussions were shared about evidence in policy. It was wonderful to see people enjoy our office space and was a great night for nurturing our growing community, both within The EQ and with the wider Network. 

Many thanks to the four organisations who covered the costs of the evening to make it a great night for all: Centre for Evidence and Implementation, Centre for Homelessness Impact, Transforming Access and Student Outcomes (TASO) and What Works for Children’s Social Care. 

Based on the success of our inaugural event, we are keen to make this a bi-annual occurrence!

If you would like to be kept up-to-date with our future events, you can join our mailing list.

To learn more about becoming a member of The EQ, please click here.