The "Workplan" Approach to ECR-led Interventions

— LIBSENSE ECR Leadership Workshop, Nigeria 2026 (LIBSENSE / University of Sheffield / WACREN)

This session introduces the planning methodology underpinning ECR-led institutional interventions, built on two concepts. Networks of Action, drawn from the ICT4D field, addresses how action research is made sustainable and scalable in dispersed, multi-stakeholder, resource-scarce settings, resting on three dynamics: learning happens in networks, experience travels through people interacting in networks, and locally created competence is translatable to other contexts. Theory of Change articulates how and why social change occurs in a given context, typically mapped through a logic model worked backwards from the goal to fill in preconditions, actions and inputs. A DIY Toolkit logic model framework is included as a reference, along with pointers to the Center for Theory of Change.

The two concepts are combined into a networked approach in which ECR Champions work with peer groups on campus as their primary networks of action while deliberately cultivating networks of influence among those holding power outside those peer groups. The session then walks through the Workplan Worksheet in four steps — envisaging the desired change to the institutional research environment, explaining the current problems and their downstream consequences, listing the actions needed, and identifying the networks (people, infrastructure and other resources) to be mobilised — each illustrated with a research ethics example. The worksheet is presented as step one of a pair, feeding into the Outcomes and Impact worksheet covered in the companion session.