Abstract
The setting up of a European Evaluation Society relies on the assumption that there exists a European professional community of evaluation, or at least an emergent one. But can one reasonably speak of evaluation as a profession?
Recent attempts at defining the evaluation profession cannot apply to Europe in total because situations are too different from one country to another, and in none is there sufficient maturity to speak of a “profession.” For this reason, the author proposes to speak of four different kinds of evaluation suppliers: professionals, specialists, craftsmen and amateurs.
With the help of three surveys, that were recently undertaken by the European Commission, he concludes that Europe is nowadays experiencing a shift from amateurs towards craftsmen and from craftsmen towards specialists. The idea of a large professional community still belongs to the future.
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Additional information
Jacques Toulemonde teaches economics at the “Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’Etat” in Lyon. He is cofounder of the “Centre for European Evaluation Expertise,” where he coordinates a large European program on Regional Policy Evaluation (MEANS). He is a member of the working group on “Policy and Program Evaluation” under the auspices of the International Institute of Administrative Science. He currently sits on a panel of experts that is conducting an audit on evaluation practices within the European Commission. He has strongly supported the establishment of the European Evaluation Society.
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Toulemonde, J. The emergence of an evaluation profession in european countries: The case of structural policies. Knowledge and Policy 8, 43–54 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02904930
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02904930