Ekkehard Nuissl von Rein

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• Ekkehard Nuissl von Rein
• Quality Assurance by External Evaluation
• of Leibniz Institutes
• Strasbourg, 15th November 2005

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• 1. The Leibniz Association
• 2. External Evaluation Procedure of the Leibniz
  Association
• 3. Results of the External Evaluation

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1. The Leibniz Association
German Publicly Funded Non-University Research
System
Problem-oriented Research
Helmholtz Association
Leibniz Association
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1. The Leibniz Association
The 84 research institutes and scientific service
facilities of the Leibniz Association are divided
into sections A Humanities and Education
Research (14 institutes) B Economics, Social
Sciences and Regional Infrastructure
Research (17) C Life Sciences (21) D
Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering
(23) E Environmental Sciences (9)
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1. The Leibniz Association

• Leibniz Institutes
• address specific scientific problems, which are
  socially relevant e.g.
• Diabetes Research
• Climate Research
• offer consulting services for different
  reference groups, e.g.
• Economics
• Adult Education
• offer information or infrastructure services for
  research, e.g.
• Primate Centre
• Information Centre for Social Sciences

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Location of the 84 Leibniz Institutes
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1. The Leibniz Association

• Funding
• Non-profit research organisation
• Institutes are co-financed by the federal and
  the 16 state governments
• Budget of about one billion , thereof 20 from
  third-party funding
• About 12,000 employees, about 7,000 academics

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Organization of the Leibniz Association
President
Section A
Administrative Board
Leibniz Senate
Section B
Section C
Section D
Administrative Office
Evaluation Office
Section E
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1. The Leibniz Association

• Quality Assurance System
• Scientific excellence and service quality is
  ensured by three elements
• Internal quality management by the institutes
• Accompanying consulting and evaluation by the
  Advisory Boards of the institutes
• External Evaluation by the Leibniz Senate

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2. External Evaluation Procedure
Objectives of the external evaluation procedure
are

• Accountability Assessment whether the institute
  meets the requirements of further public
  funding formulated as
  evaluation criteria
• Improvement Recommendation for the institutes
  development

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2. External Evaluation Procedure

• Evaluation criteria
• 1. Scientific Quality of research and service
  determining programmatic focus areas and future
  prospects theoretical and methodological
  foundation of research work efficiency and
  effectiveness raising third party funds

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2. External Evaluation Procedure

• Evaluation criteria
• 2. National and international significance
  International standing networking promoting
  young scientists political, economic and social
  relevance

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2. External Evaluation Procedure

• Evaluation criteria
• 3. Structure and organization Efficiency of
  management and organization, human resource
  development, internal quality management

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Methods
2. External Evaluation Procedure

• Analysis of available documents (budgets etc.)
• Peer review by an expert panel
• Statistical methods, bibliometric data (if
  available)
• Visit of the institutes departments and
  interviews with the institutes staff

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4 Steps of the external Evaluation Procedure
(2) International expert panels evaluate the
quality of work
(1) Institutes report on their work
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2
4
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(3) Leibniz Senate discusses and passes statements
(4) Political Committee (BLK) decides about
further funding

www.wgl.de/evaluation
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2. External Evaluation Procedure

• The evaluation procedure is based on
  principles
• Regularity
• Independence
• Transparency
• Acceptance

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Crucial Points of the Evaluation Procedure
2. External Evaluation Procedure

• Appropriateness of criteria
• Selection of experts
• Acceptance of recommendations

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• 3. Results of the External Evaluation
• 41 institutes have been evaluated since 2002
• The Leibniz Senate has issued 24 statements
• - 19 institutes will be supported for the next
  7 years
• - 4 will be re-evaluated in 3 years
• - 1 institute will be partly merged

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Statistics
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• Quality Assurance by external evaluation?
• Observations on institutes performance
  development
• In general institutes have
• - focused their research and service profile
• - increased scientific output, e.g. papers in
  reviewed journals
• - strengthened international co-operations
• - implemented internal quality management
• - emphasized promotion of young scientists.

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• Detailed information can be found on our homepage
• www.wgl.de/evaluation
• e.g.
• The Senates statements and evaluation reports
• Questionnaires, tables and information on the
  evaluation procedures as well as the Senate
  Evaluation Committee