EASY-ECO Vienna Conference
Thematic outline: Good governance, sustainable development and evaluations
As the European Commission’s White Paper on European Governance has
pinpointed, good governance requires openness, participation, accountability,
effectiveness and coherence. These principles are also reflected to a
large degree by the “Policy Guiding Principles” stated in the renewed
EU Sustainable Development Strategy that was adopted in June 2006, highlighting
the overlap between good governance and sustainable development.
SD evaluations facilitate these principles at different stages in the
policy cycle. They make political agenda setting and decision-making
more open and participatory, make decision-making and policy formulation
more accountable, and increase the effectiveness of policy implementation
and renewal. Overall, SD evaluations contribute to governance challenges
such as informed decision-making, policy integration, transparency and
stakeholder participation. Therefore, the EASY-ECO Vienna Conference
2008 will focus on the institutional and governance context of SD evaluations,
that is on “Governance by Evaluation”.
Invitation for contributions
We encourage
- researchers from all disciplines (including young researchers),
- professionals
from related fields of work,
- commissioning agents, and
- evaluation users and other stakeholders
to submit abstracts for presentations at the EASY-ECO Vienna Conference
2008 that touch on the institutional or governance context of SD evaluations
as outlined above until 10 October 2007. More specific topics are outlined
below. Please indicate in your abstract explicitly which topic you want
to address with your contribution.
Key topics
The thematic outline given above can be specified with the following
key topics. Submissions can address one or more of the key topics in
general terms or in the context of a case study.
Institutional aspects of SD evaluations
SD evaluations can take on many different forms and functions. Their
use and design is shaped not only by scientific reasoning, but also
by institutional context factors and their place in the policy cycle.
Interesting issues and questions to be explored in this respect are
the following:
- Types and tools of SD evaluation, assessment and feedback
throughout the policy cycle: How and at what point can they
be used best in the policy cycle? How can they be orchestrated? How
do they fit into a system of knowledge-based governance and the respective
institutional framework of policy-making?
- The institutionalisation
of SD evaluations across Europe: Did evaluations and other
forms of feedback become more institutionalised in recent years or
does feedback still occur on an ad-hoc basis? What is the linkage between
SD evaluations, policy learning and political cultures in different
EU countries or regions? What forms of institutionalizing feedback
have emerged and what experiences have been made?
- Building capacities
for SD evaluations: How can institutional capacities for policy learning
be built in the context of SD policy making? What role can evaluation
societies play in this respect? How to build capacities among all actors
involved (e.g. commissioning agents, evaluators) so that they understand
to frame their needs and contributions in the context of knowledge-based
governance?
Policy learning and SD evaluations
SD evaluations touch on the key principles
of good governance and sustainable development. However, they make a
difference only if they are able to trigger policy learning. Interesting
questions that explore the conditions of policy learning are the following:
- Learning through SD evaluations: What are the success
factors and limitations of policy, organizational and individual learning
in the context of sustainable development? How can the relationship
between commissioning agents and evaluators be improved in order to
foster learning? How to deal with different and ambiguous expectations
of stakeholders in SD evaluations?
- Administrative cultures and power: How did the changes
of modes of governance (bureaucracy, New Public Management, network-based
New Governance) and the respective use of policy instruments (traditional
regulations, soft law, partnerships etc.) shape the understanding,
use and design of different types and tools of feedback? How do SD
evaluations influence decisions and how do politics influence SD evaluations?
How can the dichotomy of knowledge versus power be handled in SD evaluations?
- Political relevance of SD evaluations: What impact
do SD evaluations and other feedback tools have on political decisions?
How can the awareness for SD evaluation findings be raised among decision
makers (in particular in politically contested and uncertain environments)?
What is the relationship between political culture and evaluation?
Methodological challenges and innovations
The recent evaluation theory literature provides a couple of evaluation
approaches (such as network approaches, systems approaches, empowerment
evaluations, participatory evaluations etc.) that are highly relevant
for the institutional and governance focus of the EASY-ECO Vienna Conference
2008. Thus, we invite contributors also to explore the following methodological
questions:
- What experiences have been made by using innovative SD evaluation
approaches?
- What value do innovative SD evaluations add with respect
to the challenges of knowledge-based governance and policy learning?
- How do innovative SD evaluations address the “guiding principles”
of good governance and SD (in particular policy integration and participation)?
- How can the quality of SD evaluations be secured at different stages
in the policy cycle (also through educational activities)?
Topics of interest for case studies
If a contribution addresses one or more of the key topics outlined
above not in general terms, but through a concrete SD evaluation example,
we regard the following subjects as particularly interesting:
- Climate change and energy
- Regional and rural development, structural
funds
- Sustainable development strategies at various levels of government
- RTD for sustainable development
- Sustainable consumption and production
- Environmental resources
and biodiversity
- Gender and diversity aspects of sustainable development
- Corporate
social responsibility and sustainable businesses
Evaluation
cases should deal with policies, programmes or projects. Evaluations
of products, individual companies or technologies are not in the focus
of the EASY-ECO Vienna Conference 2008.
Submission of abstracts and timeline
Participants who wish to present a paper, poster or case should send
their abstract by 10 October 2007 to
judith.galla@wu-wien.ac.at and
a copy to markus.hametner@wu-wien.ac.at.
Please clearly indicate which of the key topics outlined above your
contribution addresses. For easier file handling, please send your abstracts
as a word-file with the file name „your last name_abstract_Vienna.doc“.
Abstracts should not exceed 500 words. The organizers will inform you
about the acceptance of your abstract by 30 November 2007.
Full papers (max. 6.000-8.000 words) should be submitted until 25
January 2008.
Types of contributions
Papers – Are you a researcher or practitioner and
want to present interesting findings linked to the topics above? We look
for contributions facilitating the exchange of research results, methodological
trends, and practical experience. Presenters of papers will be expected
to give a presentation of 20 minutes followed by a short discussion.
Please send your abstract by 10 October 2007. Abstracts and full papers
will go into the online proceedings on the EASY-ECO website. A collection
of outstanding conference papers will be considered for the book Sustainability
Evaluation as a Learning Process: Institutional Challenges and Responses published in the Evaluating Sustainable Development book series by Edward
Elgar Publishing.
Posters – Conference
participants may submit a poster for display at a dedicated space at
the conference venue. The posters will be introduced in a poster session.
If you would like to submit a poster dealing with a topic relevant for
the conference, please provide a poster abstract by 10 October
2007.
The abstract will go into the online proceedings on the EASY-ECO website.
Case
studies – Interesting examples of SD evaluations are welcome
to be presented as a paper if the case has a strong link to some institutional
or governance issues and topics of interest outlined here (case studies
without this linkage are welcome as poster presentations).
Case studies
for EASY-ECO Trainings – Furthermore, we are looking for evaluation
projects which can be lectured in one of the upcoming EASY-ECO training
courses on SD evaluations. If you are an experienced evaluator and interested
in lecturing such a case study to young researchers and present your
case at the conference, please have a look at the dedicated call
for cases and get in
contact with judith.galla@wu-wien.ac.at.
This EASY-ECO Series Event is sponsored by:
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