Welcome to the
3rdEuropean Environmental Evaluators Network Forum
‘Linkingevaluation findings to enhancing sustainability’
28 - 29 April, 2014 | Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland
General information
EEEN is a forum for European environmental evaluators and a part of the international Environmental Evaluators Network that has organised international conferences on an annual basis. The 1stEuropean environmental Evaluators forum was held in Leuven, the 2ndin Stockholm and the 3rdwill be held in Helsinki and will be hosted by the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE. The island Uunisaari in Southern Helsinki just a hundred meters offshore serves as a marine environment for the forum.
The objective of the forum is to advance the field of environmental evaluation, defined as environmental policy and programme evaluation, through more systematic and collective learning among evaluators and evaluation users. The EEEN forums aim to bring together researchers, practitioners and users of environmental evaluation at any level and provide them with the opportunity to share views, knowledge and experiences about the influence, importance and future of environmental evaluation in their respective organisations, domains and disciplines.
Forum themes
The theme of the 3rd EEEN forum is ‘Linking evaluation findings to enhancing sustainability’paying particular attention to the influence of evaluations, coordination of knowledge generated by evaluations, and linking the evaluation of policy measures to long-term policy goals. Thus, the 3rd EEEN forum is focused on three sub-themes:
Exploring the Influence of Evaluation Knowledge
Significant resources have been devoted to policy evaluation research and numerous environmental evaluations have been carried out. Still it is unclear to what extent and how evaluation has affected policy decisions, and how the use of evaluation findings can be improved. This sub-theme looks for contributions addressing questions including but not limited to: What methods and measures could be used to assess the influence of evaluations? What conditions the use of evaluation knowledge? How do actors in evaluations anticipate and manage the use of evaluation findings? How could the use of evaluations be improved?
Coordination of evaluations at various levels
In the globalized world, policies can be evaluated at different levels from international to local.
A grand example is European Union policy, regarding which evaluations take place at the European and national levels. In theory, evaluations and their use would benefit from coordinating evaluations at different levels, although this is not necessary the case in practice. This sub-theme calls for contributions to address questions, such as:How to improve the coordination of evaluation projects or data at different levels?In what cases are international or EU-level evaluations directly usable at the national level? How can different level evaluations use same materials andshare learning?Accounts of meta-evaluations are also welcomed.
Linking policy measures to long-term policy goals
Several domains of environmental policy (water quality, renewable energy, etc.) have adopted long-term policy goals that should guide the design of policy instruments at EU and national levels. Yet in practice, policy instruments often address short-term goals that emerge from day-to-day political debates, while long-term policy goals may be forgotten or diluted in process. Contributions to this sub-theme could address questions, such as: How do today’s policy measures influence and/or support the achievement of long-term goals? How could evaluations bridge the gap between long-term and short-term policy goals? What factors may hamper the production of such evaluation results or their effectiveness?
Audience
The EEEN forum welcomes evaluators, researchers and users of evaluation from all relevant fields (including climate change mitigation and adaption, biodiversity conservation, environmental education, energy, air and water quality, waste, land and fisheries management, sustainable consumption and production, behaviour change, ecological restoration etc.) working in academia, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, European and international institutions and companies.
Registration
Registration is openat the EEEN forum’s website until Monday 31st of March. At the website you can also find more information about the forum program and accommodation.
Registration feeis 250€including lunch and dinner.
For any questions regarding the EEEN2014 forum, please contact the Local Organising Committee: .
LocalOrganisingCommittee: Paula Kivimaa, Tiina Jääskeläinen, Per Mickwitz, Jussi Kauppila, Petrus Kautto.
EEEN 2014 Preliminary Programme
Location: The island Uunisaari, Helsinki, Finland
Monday 28th of April
10.00-11.45 Voluntary excursion
11.45 Boat transfers to the island Uunisaari from Kompassitoridock
(at the intersection between the streets Merisatamanranta, Ehrenströmintie and Neitsytpolku, 00140 Helsinki)
12.00-13.00 Lunch
13.00 Opening the conference, Research Director Per Mickwitz,
Finnish Environment Institute
13.15-14.45 Plenaries
Professor Andrew Jordan, University of East Anglia, UK: The changing dynamics of environmental policy: challenges for appraisal and evaluation
Research Director Laura Höijer, Ministry of the Environment, Finland: The role of impact assessment and evaluation at the Finnish Ministry of the Environment
14.45-15.15Coffee
15.15-17.00ParallelSessions
Theme I Exploring the Influence of Evaluation KnowledgeBjörnPersson: Exploring the conditions of use of evaluation
Outi Slant et al.: The role of ex-ante impact assessment in Finnish Law Drafting
Piret Kuldna et al.: Exploring the influence of knowledge created with LEAP model in strategic environmental assessment of Estonian energy policy
Mikael Hildén: Mission impossible - regulatory impact assessment of a climate bill in a politically hostile environment / Theme III Linking Policy Measures to Long-Term Policy Goals
Lisa Eriksson et al.: Finding the key measures – a dynamic development in evaluation of the Swedish environmental objectives
Siv Johansson et al.: Systematic reviews – a solid base for environmental policies and management
Hans ten Berg & Eva Alfredsson: Does evaluation really have an influence on present climate policy control?
Kris Bachus: Evaluating the potential of taxation to support sustainability transitions
17.15-18.15 Panel + Discussion: How to improve EEEN as a working network?
18:30 Dinner in Uunisaari
Tuesday 29th of April
8.30-8.45 Boat transfers to the island Uunisaari from Kompassitori dock
9-10:45 ParallelSessions
Theme II Coordination of Evaluations at Various LevelsSabine Weiland et al.: Criteria for evaluating climate adaptation measures: A meta-analysis
Johan Harvard: Evaluation of a national environmental technology strategy – Maximising evaluation impact in a complex setting
Helen Poltimäe & Kaja Peterson: The interlinkages between policy instruments of offshore wind production and nature conservation / Theme III Linking Policy Measures to Long-Term Policy Goals
Lars Nilsson et al.: Counting beans and moving mountains – long term climate policy goals and the battle of frames
Tom Creten et al.: Monitoring system change, evaluating transition governance
Paula Kivimaa & Florian Kern: Evaluation of policy mixes for sustainability transitions: a preliminary framework and questions to be solved
Emilie Mutombo: Impact assessments as discourse: The European Comission environmental policy framing
10:45-11:15Coffee
11:15-13.00ParallelSessions
Theme I Exploring the Influence of Evaluation KnowledgeDavid Stunell: Towards a resource efficient Scotland – the role of evaluation in making a difference
Vibeke Nenseth: The Knowledge-Policy Interaction for Sustainable Urbanisation – Eased by Interdisciplinarity?
Eeva Primmer: Evaluation of conservation policies needs attention to implementation
Elina Vehmasto: Assessing impacts of Green Care practice for rural development / Theme II Challenges of climate policy evaluation at multiple levels
A session organized by the European Environment Agency.
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 Plenaries
Executive Director Hans Bruyninckx, European Environment Agency
Dr. Tarja Cronberg, Member of the European Parliament (the Greens)
15:30-16:00 Final discussion and closing of the conference
16:00-16:30 Coffee
16:30 Closing the conference, boat transfers onshore