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Session 853Extending Organizational Capacity and Capability to Evaluate Federal Environmental Research ProgramsIntroductionHoward CantorU.S. EPA Office of Research and Development October 29, 20052005 Joint Conference: Crossing Borders, Crossing Boundaries Canada Evaluation Society & American Evaluation Association
Session Focus • Question: How can we develop an evaluation framework that helps organizational leaders to • Value and use evaluation results; • Build evaluation capability & capacity and • Communicate about performance, outcomes, and evaluation to our clients partners, and stakeholders
Why Is this Important? • Growing emphasis on evaluation & accountability for federal research programs: • Canada, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, United States
Why Is this Important? • Challenges to evaluating federal R & D programs and to measuring performance: • Measuring new knowledge as it develops • Managing the pace at which research progresses • Coping with an absence of accurate methods to objectively evaluate research quality and impact • Reaching agreement about key evaluation definitions • Communicating research contributions to outcomes in language that the public understands
Why Is this Important? • Within the United States, EPA program managers and agency leaders must communicate to many stakeholders about accountability: • The Government Performance and Results Act • The President’s Management Agenda • The OMB Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) • The Research and Development Investment Criteria • The Information Quality Act
Specific Evaluation Objectives for Research Programs • Within the U.S., the Research & Development Investment Criteria (relevance, quality, performance) focus specifically on research program accountability • R&D investments must be planned to be relevant to national priorities, agency missions, strategic goads & customer needs • Programs must maximize the quality of the research they invest in • R&D programs must demonstrate performance by setting annual and long-term goals and demonstrating progress toward outcomes • OMB and OSTP also encourage federal research managers to characterize the scientific leadership of their research programs
Today’s Presentations Focus on: Dale Pahl15 minutes Lori Kowalski20 minutes David Schmeltz30 minutes 20 minutes Integrating program design, management, accountability, & evaluation: conceptual framework Independent expert evaluation with a FACA panel: the Board of Scientific Counselors Research contributions to outcomes: the acid rain cap & trade program Discussion
Thanks to our Session Sponsors ! • Research, Technology, and Development Evaluation Group • co-chairs: Gretchen Jordan and George Teather • Environmental Evaluation Group • co-chairs: Kara Crohn, Katherine Dawes, Allison Titcomb