portfolio | evaluation | ASO

EVALUATION OF ASOs
Contract with the Austrian Ministry of Education, science and Culture (bm:bwk) - March-June 2006

Executive Summary
The Austrian Science Offices have existed since 2004. In several cases, however, the Offices originated with previous activities in the early 1990s, when branch offices of the Austrian Institute of East and South-East Europe (OSI) were first established. They are financed by the bm:bwk and cover only those science areas for which the bm:bwk is responsible. Their mission is to serve as information and service points in Central, Eastern and Southeast European Countries in order to strengthen bi- and multilateral co-operation between scientists, researchers, research groups or scientific institutions such as universities and/or research centres from Austria with new EU Member States, Candidate Countries as well as the “Western Balkan Countries”.

The six Science Offices considered in this evaluation can be divided into two groups: bilateral and regional. The Offices in Bulgaria and Slovenia have common goals and a relatively clear policy framework for their work in South East Europe. The Science Offices in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Ukraine(1), on the other hand, focus on bilateral cooperation with Austria. They each have different lines of accountability and communication with the bm:bwk (three Offices, in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, collaborate with an implementing organisation in Vienna). Even within the two groups, each ASO is strikingly dissimilar from the next. This is mainly due their history of establishment, to the lack of a coherent policy framework and governance structure, the situation in each host country, as well as the different personalities of the respective Office directors.

In the words of a national correspondent, each of the Science Offices reaches impressive achievements considering their limited funding and resources. The strongest positive feedback for this evaluation referred to ASO activities and impact as a bridge between Austria and the respective national communities or regions. Indeed, the evaluators and correspondents were most impressed with the level of commitment and dedication exhibited by staff members of the Sciences Offices. The most effective and successful Science Offices are run by energetic, enthusiastic people who take pride in their work and in the Offices’ reputation. A wealth of experience and relevant practice has been accumulated by the Science Offices over the past years, a functioning model of regional orientation and targeted focus has been piloted, and a solid scheme for implementation with an organisation in charge of operational issues is available. Generally speaking, networking activities seem to have greater success than project funding, in part because the ASO grants are so small compared to other types of research funding.

The following factors for non-fulfilment and success were drawn from a wealth of observations, feedback, and desk research. Suboptimal results (explained in detail in the report) are caused by over-ambitious objectives; limited decision-making autonomy; static beneficiary groups; poor visibility; lack of institutional memory; random thematic focus; and casual management. ASO factors for success include niche activities; forum for launching activities and training; regional activities; innovative stakeholder relations; flexibility; visibility via dissemination, valorisation, capitalisation; service as an activity clearing-house; and embassy affiliation.

However, the current setting and orientation of the Science Offices are no longer in line with shifts in the political environment. Bilateral aid from Austria is no longer as fitting for fellow EU member states as it once may have been, because alternative and more fitting opportunities for collaboration exist, and coordination mechanisms within EU processes are in place. Furthermore, the budget allotted to the Science Offices is insufficient to allow them to expand the reach of their activities or increase their impact along the lines of the mission goals. For these reasons, this evaluation report strongly recommends re-defining the goals for the Austrian Science Offices, matching the mission to the Offices’ actual resources and realistic scope of operations, and aligning the Offices’ activities with Austrian policy – both foreign and research policy.

Selected Draft Recommendations and Action
In chapter 5 of the report, recommendations and suggestions are proposed for a re-organisation of the Science Offices. This summary presents several of these recommendations within the framework of certain potential political and budgetary choices. The options depicted are not prescriptive; indeed, the future Science Offices may undergo similar reforms as those described here, but the conditions, contexts, and elements and degrees of change are likely to be rather different, depending on the principal conditions adopted by the bm:bwk.

Recommendations: Unconditional
The following recommendations are suggested for the Austrian Science Offices, irrespective of which other changes or reforms may be adopted in future:

1. Science Offices should be provided with clear policy guidelines for their operations. Ideally, such policy should be informed by Austrian foreign policy priorities, perhaps formulated by a special committee from the Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development, and agreed upon with other Ministries responsible for science. Science Offices should be assigned tasks that do not overlap or compete with other Austrian activities in the field.
2. As a principle, Austrian Science Offices should be active in fields where scientific cooperation would otherwise not take place. A clear focus and niche of operations should become the trademark of the Science Office network (for example, by supporting the exchange of information and promoting contacts in selected areas of mutual interest, or promoting young scientists).
3. Austrian Science Offices should function mainly as a bridge, i.e. serving interests common to both Austria and the host country or region (by transferring competence in international science cooperation). In budget terms, this could result in a split between long-term bm:bwk-selected priorities for the whole network, and a country/regional-specific flexible budget to address local and national interests in line with Austrian policy.
4. Science Offices should continue to gather information on developments in science and research policies. The ASO mission should be modified; the Science Offices should not be expected to influence or impact national science policy. Instead, they should serve as a conduit of information by drafting regular reports on developments in science and research in the host countries, via a structured semi-annual Science Policy Brief. These periodic briefings to the bm:bwk would greatly enhance the focus of Austrian science policy formulation.
5. New, uniform and improved lines of reporting, funding, and communication should be developed for the entire ASO network. Supervision by the bm:bwk should be limited to setting the general guidelines. Oversight over the day-to-day management of the Offices should be delegated to an Austrian implementing organisation on a contract basis.
6. The bm:bwk should build on the successful model of the ZSI as the implementing organisation for BG, CZ and SI. Individual settings for Science Offices should be phased out in favour of a coherent management and supervision structure following this model. A suitable organisation should be identified based on a tender and for a 4 to 5-year period. This would increase know-how transfer and capacity-building, and link Science Offices to science policy-related developments in Austria and the EU. In addition, it would help increase the quality of policy input from Science Offices to the Ministry.
7. Austrian Science Offices should begin sharing success factors and examples of relevant experience with each other, as a means of mutual inspiration, and to create a set of “typical ASO activities” or profiles based on realistic and feasible practice. One of the most frequent suggestions, from nearly every host country, was a call for an international database of ASO-researchers and “alumni”.
8. Along with a clearer political focus, Science Offices should be granted a greater degree of independence in operational activity. Planning cycles should be increased to a length of 2-3 years.
9. bm:bwk should move the budget decision on international activities back to the regular Ministry budget. This would avoid trade-offs between international and national priorities and allow for more consistent, long-term strategy and budget planning by the Science Offices.

Recommendations: Conditional
The relevance of the recommendations highlighted below will depend on which changes will be made in regard to the overall framework within which the Austrian Science Offices are operating.

Option 1: Science Offices remain in the locations where they are currently located and continue to receive the same level of funding.

• Science Offices should continue to organise training sessions for EU project applicants, support the creation of consortia for EU applications, and refer interested clients to the appropriate (physical or virtual) sites specialising in EU FPs. They should consider moving away from financing primarily bilateral activities. Instead, they might address primarily internal and trans-border regional cooperation, and transnational cooperation (as Bulgaria and Slovenia do already) on a systematic – and joint – level.

Option 2: Science Offices remain in the locations where they are currently located, but receive increased funding and broaden their mandates beyond primarily bilateral cooperation with the host countries.

• The Science Offices’ mission should be revised to reflect expectations that are consistent with the resources available.

Option 3: Science Offices in EU Member States become ASO-Ps – Science Office Contact Points; Science Offices in non-EU countries are strengthened or newly established.

• In the Western Balkans, candidate countries and the new neighbourhood of the EU, fully-fledged Austrian Science Offices should expand and enhance the functions piloted by the current Science Offices, in conjunction with embassies and national institutions in order to achieve the best possible outcome for Austrian funding in the field of foreign policy-informed, international science policy action.
• For the new EU Member States, a mechanism of coordinating (down-sized) ASO-Ps should be set up on a reciprocal basis with the goal of promoting the formation and coordination of a Central European sub-grouping of EU member states.
• Another clear link to foreign policy would be a geographic focus on South-East Europe and (future) candidate countries such as Croatia, Turkey, or others.
• In order to organise the transition to a new ASO setting, the bm:bwk should first organise a call for tender for an implementing institution for the Science Offices in autumn 2006, to be contracted in early 2007. Second, it should prepare a science foreign policy document as input for Science Offices for 2007-2010, to become operational as of early 2007. Thereafter, a strategy for a coordination mechanism with CEE EU should be designed and agreed on a reciprocal basis, to be operational by autumn 2007. EU countries would thus move from the ASO group to the CEE EU mechanism. Subsequently, the bm:bwk would revise/update its strategy on a yearly basis, receive semi-annual Science Policy Briefs, and annual activity reports from the implementing organisation of the ASO network in non-EU countries. All planned changes should be announced to Science Offices and their staff with 6 months’ notice.

As a first step in creating a dialogue about these and other possible reforms, the bm:bwk should send the evaluation report to all Science Offices, their stakeholders and evaluation participants, host organisations, and key institutions in Austria. All recipients should be invited to comment.

(1) The Austrian Cooperation Office in L’viv (UA) is affiliated to the Austrian Embassy in Kyiv, and besides its “ASO-function” also acts on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (culture) and another department in the bm:bwk (education, i.e. via Österreich Kooperation). While acknowledging the special status, and broader scope, of this Cooperation Office, this report concerns exclusively its “science” agenda. Due to its completely different setting and location, the “ASO function” of the Austrian Culture Centre in Washington was not included in this study.

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