Abstract
Governments worldwide have intensified their efforts to institutionalize policy evaluation. Still, also in organizations with high evaluation maturity, the use of evaluations is not self-evident. As mature organizations already meet many of the factors that are commonly seen to foster evaluation use, they constitute an interesting research setting to identify (combinations of) factors that can make a key difference in minimizing research waste. In this article, we present an analysis of the use of evaluations conducted between 2013 and 2016 by the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a typical case of relatively high evaluation maturity. Methodologically, we rely on Qualitative Comparative Analysis as an approach that is excellently suited to capture the causal complexity characterizing evaluation use. The analysis provides useful insights on the link between knowledge production and use. We highlight the relevance of engaging policy makers in developing the evaluation design, and fine-tune available evidence as to what is perceived a good timing to organize evaluations. Contrary to existing research, we show that the political salience of an evaluation does not matter much.
Highlights
Parallel with the diffusion of the evidence-based policy mantra, the attention for policy evaluations has risen dramatically in recent decades
Consistent with our conceptualization of policy evaluation, research waste refers to evaluation findings which do not provide useful knowledge for decision makers or which are not recognized as doing so
We present the results of a systematic comparison of evaluation use in a typical case (Seawright and Gerring, 2008) of high evaluation maturity, but where evaluation use is neither self-evident
Summary
Parallel with the diffusion of the evidence-based policy mantra, the attention for policy evaluations has risen dramatically in recent decades. In their quest for more efficient, effective and democratic policy decisions, governments worldwide have intensified their efforts to institutionalize policy evaluation (Jacob et al, 2015; Pattyn et al, 2018). Consistent with our conceptualization of policy evaluation (see below), research waste refers to evaluation findings which do not provide useful knowledge for decision makers or which are not recognized as doing so. Evaluation waste in particular, can lead to huge amounts of public money being misspent (Glasziou and Chalmers, 2018; Grainger et al, 2020)
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