Best of UNICEF Research and Evaluation 2020, the flagship publication of the UNICEF Office of Research–Innocenti, opens windows on a world of essential research. For Scriptoria, it also represents the next step in our more than decade-long relationship with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

This is the third year running that Scriptoria’s writers and editors have produced the high-profile Best of UNICEF Research publication, which showcases the finalists in a global search for the best research undertaken or supported by UNICEF staff and offices. The publications have become a highlight of our year, as the finalist research inevitably captures our curiosity as writers and opens up new perspectives on old issues. The many research efforts we have featured explore important questions from around the world, such as:

• How much do girls in northern Nigeria gain from having female teachers?
• What stops refugee and asylum-seeking children in the United Kingdom from accessing education?
• Can social motivators boost handwashing in schools in the Philippines?
• Are national workplace policies supporting new mothers in Latin America and the Caribbean?
• What can community perspectives bring to Ebola virus disease preparedness in Uganda?

Putting complex research into words – and graphics

For the 2018, 2019 and 2020 publications, we set out to cleanly summarise each finalist research project without losing the depth of evidence that makes UNICEF research so influential. Starting with the original research outputs – hundreds of pages of them – we pull out the methodological innovations, crucial findings and moments of human interest to write 3-4 compelling pages on each finalist. The process includes several rounds of review and copyediting in close collaboration with UNICEF. Our team also puts forward a range of data visualisation concepts to bring the research to life in graphically creative ways.

The best of the best

In the last ten years, Scriptoria has developed all kinds of publications for UNICEF offices: a series of 10 summaries for UNICEF Ghana, which captured outcomes from a baseline report on child protection in the country; a roundtable report for UNICEF Innocenti, which collated inputs from a variety of stakeholders working with children and adolescents during a roundtable discussion on evidence for children; and an impact report for the agency’s Geneva office. In 2019, our team not only authored Best of UNICEF Research, but simultaneously put together a Best of UNICEF Research Retrospective which documented the impact and lessons learned over a six-year period of reporting.

The 2020 publication, however, is the largest yet. With a decision to merge the selection process with a parallel award scheme called Most Influential Evaluations, the combined Best of UNICEF Research and Evaluation 2020 grew in scope to showcase 18 research and evaluation successes across 165 pages. Scriptoria brought together outputs from countries as different as Belarus, Chad, Malawi and Uzbekistan to tell a story about the difference evidence makes everywhere.

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