Board

Prof. Dr. rer. pol.

Professor of Higher Education Research and Professionalization of Academic Teaching at the Faculty of Human Sciences at Otto von Guericke University

Philipp Pohlenz has been Professor of Higher Education Research and Professionalization of Academic Teaching at the Faculty of Human Sciences at Otto von Guericke University since January 2014.

He studied sociology at the Universities of Hamburg and Potsdam and graduated in 2000 with a degree in sociology. He then took over the management of the Service Center for Teaching Evaluation and the Center for Quality Development in Studies and Teaching at the University of Potsdam as a research assistant.

In 2007, he completed his doctorate at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Potsdam with a dissertation on "Data quality as a key issue of quality assurance in teaching and studies". Since 2003, Pohlenz has also been working as a consultant for development projects in the field of higher education system development in various countries in South East Asia and Africa.

The focus of his work is on student research (student success, drop-out), the further training of lecturers in higher education didactics and the organizational-theoretical analysis of universities and higher education systems. In academic teaching and academic continuing education, he focuses on events that apply empirical social research methods in various evaluation research contexts.

Philipp Pohlenz has been a member of DeGEval since 2004. From 2011 to 2022, he was a member of the team of speakers of the AK Hochschulen. He also organized the DeGEval annual conferences in 2012 (Potsdam) and 2023 (Magdeburg).

pohlenz@degeval.org

Dr.in rer. soc. oec.
Senior Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), Vienna

Angela Wroblewski studied sociology at the University of Vienna while working as a bank employee. From 1996 to 1998 she completed a postgraduate degree at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) Vienna and a Master's degree in Social Science Data Analysis at the University of Essex (UK).

Since the late 1990s, she has been involved in evaluations of measures to promote women and gender equality in the areas of the labor market, education and science. Over the last 15 years, she has mainly been involved in gender equality policy in science and research. She is currently coordinating the EU-funded project TARGET - Taking a Reflexive Approach to Gender Equality for Institutional Transformation (2017 - 2021). As part of the project, seven research institutions and research funding organizations from Mediterranean countries are being supported in the development, implementation and monitoring of gender equality plans. She is also involved in the EU-funded GENDERACTION project, where she is responsible for monitoring the implementation of national action plans for gender equality in science and research.

Angela Wroblewski has been active in DeGEval since 2005. She is a founding member of the Gender Mainstreaming working group and was one of its spokespersons until 2019. Among other things, she has worked on the gender competence profiles for evaluators. She was active on the program committee for the annual conferences from 2015 to 2019. Angela Wroblewski is also a member of the EES - European Evaluation Society and represents the IHS in fteval - the Austrian Platform for Research and Technology Evaluation.

Angela Wroblewski has been a board member of DeGEval since 2019 and its deputy chairwoman since 2021.

wroblewski@degeval.org

Dipl.-Biol., Dr. rer. pol.

VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH
Evaluation
Systemic coach and organizational consultant

Sonja Kind studied biology with a focus on molecular biology at the University of Cologne and completed her diploma thesis in 1999. She then completed her doctorate in economics and social sciences within the interdisciplinary and entrepreneurship-oriented scholarship program EXIST-HighTEPP at the University of Bamberg. From 2004 to 2005, she worked as a consultant in a strategy consultancy.

Ms. Kind has been an employee at VDI/VDE-IT since 2005 and has already worked in various areas of the company. One of her main areas of work is the evaluation of research, technology and innovation programs. Since 2010, she has been the spokesperson for evaluation at the Institute for Innovation and Technology (iit) within VDI/VDE-IT. Ms. Kind has carried out numerous program and project evaluations for public clients, in particular for federal and state ministries. The thematic spectrum ranges from cluster policy, ICT and electromobility to support for start-ups and SMEs.

For some years now, innovation and technology analysis has been another focus of her work. Since February 2014, Ms. Kind has been working on a horizon scanning project for the TAB - Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag, which she took over in 2016.

From 2015 to 2017, Ms Kind completed training as a systemic coach and organizational consultant at the artop Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin and works part-time as a coach and organizational consultant.

Ms. Kind has been involved in DeGEval since 2006 and was the spokesperson for the "Evaluation in Business" working group until 2018. She was involved in the development of the "Evaluation in Business" guidelines and was responsible for auditing the association's accounts from 2012 to 2013.

She has been a member of the DeGEval Board since 2019.

kind@degeval.org

Dipl.-Psych., Dr. phil.

Deputy Head of Department, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Impact Analysis
Zukunft – Umwelt – Gesellschaft (ZUG) gGmbH

Franziska Pfitzner-Eden is an expert in impact orientation, monitoring, and evaluation with a particular focus on programs in the field of environment and climate as well as—in the past—social participation, integration, and education.

She studied psychology at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and Victoria University in Wellington, specializing in organizational psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, social psychology, and research and evaluation methods. She began her professional career at a New Zealand government agency, where she worked for several years as a research, evaluation, and data analysis officer. Here, she was responsible for complex evaluation projects, studies, and data analyses and developed an early passion for evidence-based policy advice. Her work focused on poverty reduction, integration, social participation, and urban and regional development.

From 2011, Franziska Pfitzner-Eden led evaluations of third-party funded programs in the field of teacher training and integration at the Free University of Berlin as a research assistant. At the same time, she completed a cumulative doctorate at the interface between health psychology and university evaluation. During this time, she also worked as a freelance evaluator for non-profit organizations, among others. After a brief period as a research assistant at the Robert Koch Institute in nationwide health monitoring, she joined PHINEO gAG as an evaluation expert. There, she led contract evaluations for the Federal Ministry of Health, among others, developed impact logics and monitoring systems as a consultant for the Federal Foreign Office, among others, and trained non-profit organizations in impact orientation as a trainer.

Franziska Pfitzner-Eden is responsible for human resources matters at the office.

Dr. rer. soz. oec.

Senior Evaluator at the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval)

Tobias Polak is a social scientist and economist and received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 2012. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for the former German Development Service (DED) in Mali and his subsequent dissertation focused on local governance networks and the application of empirical methods in non-European contexts.

From 2012, he worked for the German Development Evaluation Institute DEval in Bonn. He was involved in the planning and implementation of strategic evaluations, focusing on the methodological quality of evaluations in the field of development policy.

He then took over the management of the Evaluation & Statistics Unit at the Austrian Development Agency in Vienna. In this role, he was responsible for conducting strategic evaluations for the Foreign Ministry and implementing the official statistics on development financing (Official Development Assistance, ODA).

He has been a senior evaluator and team leader at DEval since June 2019 and is currently in charge of the sector evaluation "Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights".

Tobias Polak has been active in DeGEval since 2013. From 2015 to 2022, he was spokesperson for the evaluation methods working group. In this role, he dealt with the question of the methodological quality of evaluations in different policy fields and with the exchange across policy field boundaries, among other things.

polak@degeval.org

Dr. rer. pol.

North Rhine-Westphalia University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration, HSPV NRW
Professor of Political Science and Governance

Markus Seyfried earned his doctorate in political science with a thesis on “The Independence and Effectiveness of State Audit Offices” and studied comparative literature, economic policy, and statistics at the University of Potsdam from 2001 to 2005. From 2007 to 2020, Markus Seyfried was a research assistant at the Chair of Political Science, Administration, and Organization there.

He deals with the effectiveness of independent public organizations (universities, broadcasting, audit offices). In addition, Markus Seyfried has been involved in various research and consulting projects (such as on the course of study of foreign students, dropouts, surveys on local democracy), strengthening the local health sector in Nepal, governance structures, institutions, and policy formulation in climate change (PROGRESS network), as well as collaborating on the development of administrative sciences in Afghanistan (in cooperation with GIZ and the AA). Markus Seyfried headed, among other things, the BMBF-funded WiQu joint project, which investigated the effects of quality management in studies and teaching at universities, as well as a BMBF-funded subproject in the research network on the organization of the security market. Since September 2020, he has been Professor of Political Science and Governance at the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration in North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 2022, he has also been a member appointed by the state of Brandenburg and elected deputy chairman of the Commission for Determining the Financial Requirements of Broadcasters (KEF).

Markus Seyfried is actively involved in DeGEval. Since 2021, he has been one of the spokespersons for the Administration Working Group, which regularly holds spring meetings and contributes to the annual conferences. His work focuses on issues relating to the institutional embedding and organization of evaluations. Markus Seyfried is primarily responsible for organizing the annual conferences.

Magistra Artium

Independent evaluator, founder of smep-consult (Salzburg, Austria)

Susanne von Jan studied communication science (major), ethnology and work and organizational psychology (minor subjects) with a focus on empirical social research and graduated in 2008 with a Magister Artium.

Her first position as a research assistant at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich brought her into direct contact with the field of evaluation, as she was responsible for applied impact research and evaluation in various EU-funded projects.
Various experiences abroad led to an increased interest in the field of development cooperation, in which Susanne von Jan then worked, always in the context of monitoring and evaluation. She held various professional positions, including at VENRO (Association of German Development and Humanitarian Aid NGOs), CEval (Centre for Evaluation) and then as deputy head of the evaluation department at the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Munich.

At the end of 2019, Susanne von Jan moved to Salzburg and set up smep-consult as an independent evaluator and consultant. Her work focuses on impact-oriented project planning, advice on setting up monitoring systems and conducting external (impact) evaluations. She also conducts training courses on these topics. Her thematic focus is on development cooperation, although other areas such as development education, international cooperation and regional development are also part of her thematic spectrum.

Susanne von Jan has been actively involved in DeGEval since 2014 and was one of the spokespersons for the Development Policy and Humanitarian Aid working group from that time until September 2022. From 2016 to 2018, she was a member of the programme committee for the organization of the DeGEval annual conference programme. She has been involved in various DeGEval working groups, in the last two years mainly in the preparation of the guidelines on remote evaluation and on quality criteria for monitoring, and was also active in the ad hoc group "Memberships of DeGEval".

Ms. von Jan has been a member of the DeGEval Board since 2022.

To date, the following people have served on the DeGEval Board (in the order in which they left)

• Udo Kelle, professor at Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg (as chairman of the board from 2021-2025)
• Manfred Rolfes, Professor of Applied Human Geography and Regional Sciences at the Institute for Environmental Sciences and Geography at the University of Potsdam (as board member from 2019-2025)
• Stefan Schmidt, graduate social worker; Master of Organizational Psychology, freelance evaluator: schmidt evaluation (Cologne) (as board member from 2017-2023).
• Dr. Jutta Wolff, Dipl.-Psych., Institute for Educational Monitoring and Quality Development (as Board member from 2021-2022).
• Prof. Dr. Jan-Ulrich Hense, Professor of University Didactics and Evaluation at the Institute of Psychology and Sports Science at Justus Liebig University in Giessen (as a member of the Board from 2015-2021 and as Chair of the Board from 2017-2021).
• Dr. Marianne Lück-Filsinger, Head of the research group "Educational, Evaluation and Social Studies" (ForBES) at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Saarland University of Applied Sciences (HTW Saar) (as a member of the Board from 2017-2021 and as Deputy Chair of the Board from 2019-2021).
• Dr. Christiane Kerlen, independent evaluator and managing director of Kerlen Evaluation in Edinburgh (as board member from 2011-2015 and as deputy chair of the board from 2015-2019)
• Dr. Sonja Sheikh, Managing Director of Austrian Cooperative Research Vienna (Board member from 2012-2019).
• Prof. Dr. Philipp Mayring, Professor of Applied Psychology and Methodological Research at the Institute of Psychology at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt (as Chairman of the Board from 2015-2017).
• Dr. Oliver Schwab, Managing Director at the Institut für Stadtforschung Strukturpolitik GmbH (IfS), Berlin (as a member of the Board from 2013-2017).
• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Böttcher, Professor of Educational Science with a focus on quality development and evaluation in educational and social institutions at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (as a member of the Board from 2009-2011 and as Chairman of the Board from 2011-2015).
• Peter Maats, KfW Entwicklungsbank (as Deputy Chairman of the Management Board from 2011-2015).
• Dipl.-Ing., Dr.-Ing. Thomas Weith, Head of the research focus "Land Management, Regional Strategies and Evidence" at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research Müncheberg (ZALF) e.V. (as a member of the Board from 2009-2013).
• Dr. Karin Haubrich, DJI - Deutsches Jugendinstitut e.V., Munich (as a board member from 2007-2011).
• Dr. Uwe Schmidt, Head of the Centre for Quality Assurance and Development (ZQ) at the University of Mainz (as a member of the Board from 2003-2005 and as Deputy Chairman of the Board from 2005-2011).
• Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. Christiane Spiel, Dean of the Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna (as Chairwoman of the Board from 2003-2011).
• Dr. Hans-Peter Lorenzen, MinDirig a. D. in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, Bonn/Berlin (as a member of the Board from 2005-2009).
• Dr. Dirk Scheffler, Partner of e-fect hoffmann + scheffler gbr, Trier (as a member of the Management Board from 2005-2009).
• Prof. (FH) Dr. Alexandra Caspari, University of Applied Sciences Frankfurt am Main, formerly Head of Development Cooperation at the Center for Evaluation (CEval), Saarland University (as Board member 2003-2007).
• Günter Tissen, Managing Director of Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung Zucker & Verein der Zuckerindustrie, Bonn (initiator of the foundation, Chairman of the Founding Board 1997-1999, then Deputy Chairman until 2005).
• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Beywl, scientific director and founder of Univation (Cologne); head of the professorship for education management and school and personnel development at the University of Teacher Education Northwestern Switzerland; program management member of the master's program "Evaluation" at the University of Berne (deputy chairman of the founding board from 1997-1999, then board member until 2005).
• Dr. Alois Basler, formerly of the Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL), Braunschweig (Board member from 2001-2003).
• Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Daniel, University of Zurich, formerly Center for Higher Education Research, Kassel.
• Prof. Dr. Hildegard Müller-Kohlenberg, University of Osnabrück (as a member of the Board from 1999-2003).
• Prof. Dr. Stefan Kuhlmann, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, ISI Karlsruhe (as a board member from 1997-2001).

DeGEval would like to express its sincere thanks for their contribution.