Building Evaluation Capacity in the Public and Health Sectors

How and why?

Seminar with Isabelle Bourgeois from the University of Ottawa, Canada.

In the Danish Public and Health Sectors, there is an increasing awareness that evaluations must contribute to learning and support ongoing development and improvement. For this reason, there is a need for both individual and organizational capacity to carry out and use evaluations within the organizations, for precisely these purposes.

At this research seminar, one of the leading researchers within Evaluation Capacity Building: Isabelle Bourgeois gives us an introduction to what we know in terms of research about Building Evaluation Capacity: What works for whom, how and why?

The Research Committee of the Danish Society for Quality in Health Care (DSKS) and the Board of the Danish Evaluation Society (DES) invite you to this joint research seminar. The theme is: Building Evaluation Capacity in the Public and Health Sectors.

The seminar takes place in English. Online participation is possible.

Time:

The 10th of May 2023 at 17.00 – 19.00

Place:
Sundheds og Kvartershuset Fyrkildevej 7
9220 Aalborg Ø

Price:

Registration is free.

Please register here

Register

Program:

At 16.30: Check-in. Coffee and cake

At 17.00: Welcome by chairman of the DSKS Research Committee Søren Paaske Johnsen and chairman of the board of DES Mikkel Møldrup-Lakjer

At 17.15: Presentation by Isabelle Bourgeois

At 18.15: Break with sandwiches

At 18.40: Questions and debate with Marie Lund and Charlotte Laubek

TWENTY YEARS IN THE MAKING: EVALUATION CAPACITY BUILDING IN THE PUBLIC AND HEALTH SECTORS

Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) was first introduced in the evaluation literature more than twenty years ago. Since then, it has evolved considerably in terms of theory and practice. Evaluators and researchers interested in ECB can choose from various frameworks, measurement instruments, and strategies to document and build individual and organizational capacity to conduct high quality evaluations and to ensure their utilization towards decision-making and program improvement. This presentation will provide both a theoretical perspective on ECB through an overview of current knowledge and practices documented in the research literature, as well as a practical perspective on how evaluation capacity can be developed in organizations. Several examples of ECB strategies implemented in Canada, at the intersection of the public and health sectors, will be presented to illustrate key differences between direct, indirect, and organizational ECB interventions. These examples will include ECB initiatives conducted in health-focused community-based organizations, long-term care institutions, public health units, and in the Canadian federal government. The presentation will also address key competencies required to support organizations involved in an ECB process as well as the need for continuing research on ECB.

Isabelle Bourgeois, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Canada. Her ongoing research work focuses on measuring and building organizational evaluation capacity (EC) in the public, health, and community sectors. Her main contributions in this field include the development of an organizational framework of evaluation capacity as well as an online organizational EC assessment instrument. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the LaboEval, a laboratory engaged in the study of EC in community-based organizations. Dr. Bourgeois is also the former Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation (2017 – 2022). In 2017, she received the Karl-Boudreault Award for Leadership in Evaluation from the National Capital Chapter of the Canadian Evaluation Society.