Evaluating Spanish science policy – the making of a researcher-practitioner in a Spanish Ministry

Evaluating Spanish science policy – the making of a researcher-practitioner in a Spanish Ministry

1400-1600 Wednesday 9^th November, Roberts Building 106, UCL London.

Dr Armela Dino presents the findings and reflections from her journey as a UCL STEaPP DPA graduate where she focused her research on evaluating science policy while employed as a civil servant in the Ministry of Science. She will talk about applying a realist evaluation approach to exploring how well the Severo-Ochoa programme operated, and discuss her transformation from a civil servant practitioner to DPA-trained researcher-practitioner. 

Alongside Armela, Professor Jordi Molas Gallart will discuss the dominant approaches in Spain to the evaluation of STI policy, and how these are shaped by the institutionalised practices of the Spanish state. The contrast with realist evaluation will be explored as well as the scope for new approaches, like Realist Evaluation, to develop and grow in this context. 

A Q&A session will follow to open up the area of how we go about evaluating science policy and what research approaches, organisational arrangements and practitioner competencies are needed.

Brief biographies

Dr Armela Dino is a science policy analyst at the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and a doctor in realist policy evaluation from UCL STEaPP. Armela is Spain’s representative in several International Dialogues. As a researcher, she carried out a first-time-ever realistic evaluation of a science policy instrument (Centres of Excellence Programme) in a country (Spain) where the public policy evaluation is scarce. More info: https://sites.google.com/view/armeladino and her doctoral thesis: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10148014/. Armela remains interested in developing my research and academic experience that enhance understanding for more effective policymaking. 

Prof Jordi Mola-Gallart is Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and Director of INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), a joint research centre of CSIC and the Polytechnic University of Valencia. His research interests focus mainly on science and technology policy evaluation and impact assessment. He has led and contributed to many research projects on evaluation for a wide variety of organisations, including Sweden’s innovation agency (Vinnova), the Catalan regional government, and the European Commission. He was editor of Research Evaluation between 2013 and 2020, and President of the European Network of Indicator Designers (ENID) between 2015 and 2019. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the journals Research Evaluation, Research Policy and Evidence & Policy. He has contributed to many European Commission expert groups, and chaired the Science Europe working group on Research Policy and Programme Evaluation.