Session 1: Impacts at policy and network level
Session 1: Impacts at policy and network level
Moderator: Effie Amanatidou, University of Manchester
Background
P2Ps can produce various types of impacts ranging from scientific / technological impacts on the specific research area addressed, to economic impacts that can denote changes at the organisational and also national budgetary levels, or cultural and societal impacts reflecting changes to mind-sets or behaviours. In the general evaluation context these impacts are usually examined at the project level.
Common practice in the evaluation of research programmes reflects the notion that the impact of the whole programme is the aggregate impact of the component projects. P2Ps however are not programmes; they are networks. The very existence and the way a network is designed, structured and operated produces additional impacts, sometimes called ‘process impacts’. These impacts can range from:
- policy-related or conceptual impacts when participation in a P2P changes the way a certain research area is perceived at policy level;
- connectivity impacts reflecting the collaboration of funding agencies or programme managers that can have a long-lasting effect;
- capacity building impacts in organisational and personal skills in international programme management for instance;
- attitudinal/cultural impacts reflecting a more positive or negative attitude towards trans-national collaboration and
- structural impacts relating to changes in institutions and structures in the national or European research landscape.
These impacts are directly linked with the overall, common aim of P2Ps, i.e. to achieve coordination and alignment of national/regional programmes towards achieving jointly set objective. Any framework for P2P evaluation should enable the examination of such types of impacts as they are equally important to those stemming from the P2P-supported projects.
Objectives
The workshop will:
- introduce participants to the suggested framework for P2P evaluation at policy/network level;
- give participants the opportunity to validate the framework from various perspectives, for instance
- whether the framework captures effectively the various impacts that participants have experienced from their P2P participation or that have surfaced in P2P evaluation exercises, and
- whether the framework appropriately addresses/considers network elements that they think are important, i.e. network organisation, governance structures, network processes, etc.
The overall aim of the workshop will be to validate the suggested framework and provide insights for specialising the framework to certain P2P specificities that may have not been adequately addressed.
Workshop structure
It is suggested that the workshop is structured around a panel discussion followed by open discussion with the audience. All the panellists will be addressed with the two questions presented above and will have the chance to comment either orally or following a short PowerPoint presentation.
Suggested time-table
16:00-16:20 Short presentation of the Framework focusing primarily on the network level
16:20-17:10 six 5-10-minute responses/interventions from the panellists:
- JPIs, Ingolf Schaedler/Margit Noll, Urban Europe, from the perspective of the JPI community;
- EMPIR, Duncan Jarvis, from the perspective of connectivity/attitudinal impacts;
- Austrian Ministry of Transport, Brigitte Weiss, perspective of structural impacts (national coordination);
- Biodiversa, Xavier Le Roux, about policy/conceptual impacts at national and/or European level;
- Swedish Research Council, Pontus Holm, perspective of organizational impacts from P2P participation;
- NCN Poland, Justyna Wozniakowska, Head of International Cooperation, capacity building impacts.
17:10-18:00 Open discussion