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networks | cern
Background
The Capitalisation + Evaluation Research Network (CERN) and the E-VAL electronic environment have been established under the Leonardo programme of the EU in 2001. They have brought together experts in theory and practice of evaluation from 14 countries across Europe.
CERN analyses intention, effectiveness and impact of activity, in order to recommend future action and to stimulate collective learning.
E-VAL develops a virtual environment to support those involved in evaluation processes.
Shared Principles
Members of the Network are committed to evaluation as a developmental process that illuminates or enlightens the specific policies, processes and practice of its stakeholders, contributes to the collective learning of the wider community, and is ultimately an instrument for informed change.
The process is most appropriate and most useful in situations of change and mobility, where understanding change and its consequences can contribute to the development of relevant responses.
The commitment is underpinned by emphasis upon:
- The development of relationships between evaluator and client that are not based on dependency but on joint understanding. The evaluation process should be one, therefore, that empowers the client to become more autonomous in their capacity to make informed future strategic decisions.
- Evaluation as being an integral part of the organisational planning and decision-making process. This implies a facility for ongoing review as opposed to a disconnected exercise that is ‘tacked on at the end’; it also implies that the evaluation process should be thought through and designed before, not after, the work starts.
- The need to ensure that evaluation results are both transparent and transferable, leading to a focus on targeted dissemination to both internal and external stakeholders. For both these sets of stakeholders, recommendations need to be more than aspirations or ‘wish-lists’. The process of deciding on which recommendations to pursue in which way should be one based on joint understanding of real constraints and opportunities; not on external expert pronouncements made outside the realm of such understanding.
- Emphasis upon flexibility in the development of different approaches and theoretical perspectives to ensure congruence between the evaluation process and the policies, processes and practices being evaluated.
- The need to work towards complementarity and congruence between internal and external evaluation processes. Data and findings generated internally - as part of ongoing efforts to understand and interpret change – can and should make important contributions to external review exercises.
- The acknowledgement and promotion of evaluation as a skilled intervention and a specialist field of knowledge and practice.
- The promotion of evaluation principles and practice that are ethical, professional and responsible.
The public website www.evaluate-europe.net
of CERN and E-VAL contains further information.
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