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The MRC Population Health Sciences Research Network (PHSRN) was established by the UK Medical Research Council in 2005. The work of the network focuses on methodological knowledge transfer in population health sciences. PHSRN has been responsible for producing guidance, on behalf of MRC, for the conduct of population health research including, in 2008, the updated guidance on the evaluation of complex interventions and, in 2011, guidance on the evaluation of natural experiments.

The updated MRC guidance on the evaluation of complex interventions called for definitive evaluation to combine evaluation of outcomes with that of process. This reflected recognition that in order for evaluations to inform policy and practice, emphasis was needed not only on whether interventions ‘worked’but on how they were implemented, their causal mechanisms and how effects differed from one context to another. It did not, however, offer detail on how to conduct process evaluation. In November 2010 an MRC PHSRN-funded workshop discussed the need for guidance on process evaluation. Following the workshop, at which there had been strong support for the development of guidance, a multi-disciplinary group was formed to take on the task.