I am Dominique Barjolle, deputy director of FiBL, the Research Institute of Organic Farming in Switzerland. I have done much research (and worked directly) in the past on Innovation in Agriculture, and am currently involved in the IMPRESA project (http://www.impresa-project.eu/), with the role of designing the case studies together, among others, with Matthieu Stigler.

I very much agree with the point of view of Justus M. Kavoi (Message 36). This is an important point, as the participation in the evaluation is one of the major tools of lessons learned and future improvement.

I would like to stress in this matter an important point, that is the fact that participation is, from my point of view, more an approach regarding HOW to conduct an evaluation, but not a METHOD as such.

Participatory check-lists, focus groups, questionnaires with stakeholders are methods to gather the diversity of the points of view. Regarding the evaluation of research impact as such, there are some established (or less established but interesting new methods) like Total Factor Productivity or inputs/outputs, impact assessment, contribution analysis (Mayne 2012), Pattern Matching (Coryn et al, 2011), maybe Social Network Analysis, etc.

Participatory approaches are useful in elaborating the impact pathway, and are a way to collect some data. They are (for me) not a "method" as such to evaluate impact of research.

Dr Dominique Barjolle
Directrice suppléante
Habilitée à diriger les recherches en économie 
Institut de recherche de l¹agriculture biologique (FiBL)
Ackerstrasse 113, 
Case postale 219
5070 Frick, 
Switzerland
Tél. +41 (0)62 865 72 72, 
Tél. direct: +41 (0)62 865 7222 
Fax +41 (0)62 865 72 73 
e-mail: dominique.barjolle (at) fibl.org 
www.fibl.org

References:
- Mayne, J. 2012. Contribution analysis: Coming of age? Evaluation 18: 270-280.
- Coryn, C.L.S., Noakes, L.A., Westime, C.D. & Schroter, D.C. (2011). A systematic review of theory-driven evaluation practice from 1990 to 2009. American Journal of Evaluation, 32, 199-226. http://www.wmich.edu/evalphd/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/A-Systematic-Review-of-Theory-Driven-Evaluation-Practice-from-1990-to-2009.pdf (300 KB).

[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] For further information, see http://www.fao.org/nr/research-extension-systems/res-home/news/detail/en/c/217706/ ].

########################################################################

To unsubscribe from the Impact-L list, click the following link:
https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=Impact-L&A=1