International conference in Saarbrücken: Shaping evaluation for the future!

International conference in Saarbrücken: Shaping evaluation for the future!

From September 17th to 19th, 2025, the Saarland University an important international conference on evaluation in development cooperation, environmental support and migration policy took place. Organized by the Society for Evaluation and the Saarbrücken Center for Evaluation, this event aims to support political decision-making through well-founded data, facts and assessments. Over 300 participants from more than 20 countries and international organizations are expected.

A central aspect of the conference is the national part, which includes 30 forums and working group meetings on various technical and sectoral issues. The international part, however, is based on the research project CEval Evaluation GLOBE, which is dedicated to closing the research gap in the institutionalization and professionalization of evaluation.

Research and publications

As part of this project, 50 country case studies and 11 reports from transnational organizations were published in four volumes: Europe 2020, Americas 2022, Asia-Pacific 2023 and Africa 2025. A total of 137 authors contributed to these publications, the results of which will be presented during the conference.

A highlight of the event will be the final panel on September 18 at 12:30 p.m., with representatives from the World Bank, OECD, American Evaluation Association and the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation taking part. The topic of the panel will be the translation of scientific results into practice for evidence-based policy.

Development of the concept of evaluation

A further context for the conference is the development of the concept of evaluation in international development cooperation, as in the Academia is described. Originally, evaluation was used synonymously with cost-benefit analysis. However, over the last 50 years, a change has taken place that has brought social, cultural and political needs into focus.

The team of evaluators, recruited from the Institute for Communication and Technology Research (KomTech), brings extensive academic and professional skills. KomTech not only offers empirical social research and theoretical analyses, but is also active in consulting, evaluation and further training. However, there is a challenge in ensuring the neutrality of evaluators, as evaluation is often used as a source of income.

For further information about the conference, interested people can contact the responsible professors, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Meyer and Prof. Dr. Reinhard Stockmann, record. Mr. Meyer can be reached at the telephone number 0681 302-4358 and the email address w.meyer(at)mx.uni-saarland.de, while Mr. Stockmann can be contacted at 0681 302-3372 and r.stockmann(at)mx.uni-saarland.de.