Evidence Emergency project

Evidence Emergency was made possible with the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Made possible with Heritage Fund

To help us address this challenge, we have developed prototypes of an Evidence Competency Framework and Self-assessment Tool for Wildlife Trust staff, to enable us to more efficiently use our existing skills but also identify where we might need to invest in training to facilitate upskilling at a cross-federation scale.

We worked with 13C Consulting Ltd to quality assure our Competency Framework and Data for Action led us through a series of prototyping workshops to produce a functioning Self-assessment Tool prototype that we have tested with Wildlife Trust staff and will improve on in future iterations.

The grant from the Heritage Fund also enabled us to pilot some evidence-based training, to test how this could work within the Wildlife Trusts federation. Alcedo Conservation worked with facilitators from Kent Wildlife Trust and The Vincent Wildlife Trust, to deliver training in ‘Getting Started with the Conservation Standards’ – a five-step adaptive management cycle, supporting conservation teams to develop and implement projects that are robust, evidence-based, and relevant to their context.

Finally, we have tested a micro-grant approach to help existing examples of good evidence-based practice within individual Wildlife Trusts to move towards being adopted or adapted by more Wildlife Trusts and therefore providing wider benefits across the federation:

▪️ Northumberland Wildlife Trust used their grant to improve standardisation in the use of ArcPro templates amongst GIS users.

▪️ Warwickshire Wildlife Trust gathered evidence on current approaches to in-field data capture and undertook field trials using different combinations of hardware and software, highlighting the pros and cons of different approaches for meeting different needs.

▪️ Gloucestershire Centre for Environmental Records documented how they moved a Local Wildlife Sites database from an old to a new structure, providing a template for others to use.

▪️ Somerset Wildlife Trust created a Digital Reserve Toolkit designed to help other Wildlife Trusts create their own digital reserves.

We are thrilled that we will be able to further develop this work in a new phase of the project running until December 2026, also funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund!

#Grow Wildlife Trusts Evidence Emergency Centre of Excellence

Evidence Emergency is a partnership project between Sheffield & Rotherham, Gloucestershire, Gwent, Surrey and Kent Wildlife Trusts, The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts and external partner Conservation Evidence.

Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust logo
Surrey Wildlife trust logo
Made possible with Heritage Fund

Since the start of 2023, thanks to National Lottery players, our Evidence Emergency project has been exploring and testing potential solutions to our workforce challenge: we want to be a more evidence-led federation of Wildlife Trusts.

About the Heritage Fund

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is the largest funder for the UK’s heritage. Using money raised by National Lottery players we support projects that connect people and communities to heritage. Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the
future. From historic buildings, our industrial legacy and the natural environment, to collections, traditions, stories and more.

Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.