EES has submitted and won a project proposal with the title »Strengthening Cooperation among Evaluation Societies in Europe: Identifying and Implementing Synergies”. The project is co-organized by the European Evaluation Society (EES) and the Network of Evaluation Societies in Europe (NESE). It is funded by an EvalPartners Peer-to-Peer grant. The goal of the project is to enhance the collaboration between the EES and NESE, and within National Evaluation Societies, specifically on the following themes: The harmonization of national strategies to increase membership; The harmonization of tools used by the national societies to collect data on their membership (e.g. registration forms); Integrating website tools; Coordinating the dates of the national evaluation conferences so that members can participate in multiple conferences.
SiES is critical about EES participation in EvalPartner initiative (IOCE)
SiES has been critical to EES for its poor scoping of the project needs and for mixing the project implementation with the operation of NESE network. Below you can see the exchange of letters between SiES and EES, that took place in October 2013.
1. SiES to EES, 10. October 2013
Dear colleagues,
Our opinion about the EES-NESE Project is that the project idea is not based on sound scoping of needs of national evaluation societies. Also, EES has been previously unwilling to share data collected by national societies and it is not indicating that it wishes to change such attitude. Their top down approach is regrettable, unnecessary and probably unproductive.
In addition we are not in favour of the idea to organise NESE formal meting as a part of a specific project which is obviously not representative for the NESE. Instead, we propose that the Session 7 from the tentative programme (the second day) is removed from the program and organised separately from the Workshop.
Kind regards, Bojan Radej, Slovenian Evaluation Society
2. Re, Barbara Befani (EES) to SiES, 22. October 2013
Dear Bojan, thanks for your suggestions.
The workshop in Warsaw does not replace the official NESE meeting, due to take place in October 2014 in Dublin during the EES conference.
The workshop programme is still work in progress and open to change. When we decided to respond to the call, the deadline was very close and we did not have enough time to carry out a broad consultation among societies. But, at this stage, we do welcome proposals for topics that are not yet included; and we encourage societies to make suggestions as to what to discuss.
Looking forward to further proposals,
Barbara
3. Re of SiES to EES (Befani)
Dear Barbara,
thank you for responding. Also I am grateful for taking into account a proposal regarding separation of NESE meeting from the workshop of this particular project.
I actually addressed my letter to EES so I expected them to respond. But they remain consistent in their top down attitude. They address NESE network mainly only if they need to disseminate their calls and collect data which they happen to wish for some reason.
We are approaching EvalYear and this particular IOCE project is a part of preparation of evaluation community for this event. The aim of EvalYear process is »to feature inclusion, where everyone has a role to play”, its aim is further “to mobilize the energies and enhance the synergy”. EvalYear will be a catalyst for important conversations and thinking so that it will help to shape opinion and influence decision making through Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPE). If we compare EES attitude towards initiatives and opinions of NESE members, it is hard to imagine how EES could play a catalyst, just the opposite. Here I see a discrepancy between intrinsic aims of IOCE project and the way, how EES in practice accomplishes a project, financed by IOCE.
So if we can propose the topics for your discussion:
a. What would be more effective organisation and operation model for cooperation between European national evaluation societies? Presently centralised model with EES on the top may be replaced by decentralised approach in which national societies have much more direct contacts, such as via regional cooperation and interregional organisation on the European level.
b. NESE is operating without annual program of work – we have agreed in Prague, that the work program will be prepared. How mission statement of NESE is being fulfilled in practice?
Kind regards, Bojan Radej, SiES
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