Practice-Impact II: Development and Testing of a Concept for Documentation and Evaluation of Productive Interactions and Impacts on Practice and Society in Agricultural Research
Cooperation Partner: University of Kassel, Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, Organic Farming and Cropping Systems
Currently, established research evaluation procedures are largely based on peer review publications, citation based indicators and third-party funds. However, the focus on the “scientific impact” only partially captures to what extent research contributes to solving societal or ecological problems. An increasing number of scientists and initiatives point out the responsibility of (public funded) science to contribute appropriate solutions for problems like global warming, food safety and loss of ecosystem services and research evaluations should set incentives to do so. This project was aimed at contributing to the implementation of complementary assessment of activities and impact of research regarding the needs of practice and society.
Concepts for an evaluation beyond scientific impact do already exist for inter- and transdisciplinary research, applied agricultural research and broader/social/societal impact assessments and are partly used by funding agencies. They include criteria for productive interactions between research and society, which make an impact probable, as well as the impact on practice and society itself. Nevertheless, broader use of the existing concepts is hampered by the lack of reliable, easy to use data.
The main task of the project was the further development and testing of a documentation and evaluation concept for agricultural research. The concept was defined to be broad enough to include all productive interactions and impacts of different types of agricultural research and can be used for the evaluation of scientists, institutions, projects and programmes. This requires a structured, standardized documentation in a database-system that enables to filter, aggregate and analyse data in different ways.
In order not to increase the effort necessary for scientists to document their projects, the developed documentation system is connected to general documentation procedures in proposals and reports for research funding but also includes project independent research.
The project developed and tested the structured documentation system and an assessment framework. This included three perspectives: Scientists responsible for documentation, funding agencies and evaluation experts. Furthermore, the project engaged in the development of applicable and accepted pathways to implement such evaluation in alignment with agricultural research and other relevant stakeholders and experts.
Project Evaluation "Diakonie and Caritas as Places of Sustainable Lifestyles and Procurement"
The evaluated project “Diakonie and Caritas (Protestant and Catholic social welfare organisations) as Places of Sustainable Lifestyles and Procurement” was launched on November 1, 2010 and ended on April 30, 2013. The project aim was to improve the sustainability of procurement in institutions providing inpatient care for the elderly, children and young people and people with disabilities. At the same time, staff, residents and visitors were informed and encouraged to adopt sustainable Lifestyles. In addition, approaches to reduce the use of resources and to introduce sustainable procurement Standards tested in pilot Projects were intended to be nationally disseminated and implemented in Diakonie and Caritas institutions as well as in non-church-based social welfare organisations.
The Evaluation was formative, accompanied the process and began one and a half years into the project. It should provide relevant findings for the remaining Duration of the project and its planned continuation. Broadly speaking, a detailed Content description of the four project phases was compared to its current Status at the beginning of the Evaluation. More specifically, the aim was to document activities which had been realised when the evalzuation began, to obtain Information on the achievements of sub-Targets (“Improving Procurement Regarding Sustainability Standards”, “National Dissemination of the Project”, “Creating Network Structures”) and to identify potentials for optimisation. Special Focus has been laid on Institution Management and staff and how they can be motivated to pursue sustainable procurement.
CEval applied a mixed method Approach focusing on qualitative Guideline-based interviews and standardised online surveys to collect relevant data. Data and method analyses were enhanced by document analyses.
Watermark Campaign
The “Watermark Campaign” is a program of the Ministry for the Environment that provides financial support to the Saarland municipalities in their efforts to separate non-contaminated rainwater from waste water that needs to be cleaned. Since the watermark campaign came into force in 1996, around 400 projects have been subsidized with a total of around 65 million. As part of this evaluation, it was systematically examined how the project was accepted by those involved on site and where problems arise. The results of the evaluation should be used to redesign the watermark campaign.
