Keynotes
der 28. DeGEval-Jahrestagung 2025 in Saarbrücken
The Institutionalization of Evaluation in a Global Perspective
In the keynote the findings of the Evaluation Project are presented. For this purpose, first, the research objectives and the theoretical and methodological approach underlying the project, the selection of the 50 countries analysed and the selection of the case study experts (authors) as well as the quality assurance mechanisms applied in order to achieve comparable results, are presented.
This is followed by a presentation of the findings on the institutionalization of evaluation in the political and social system and the degree of professionalization of evaluation in the countries studied. A double comparative analysis perspective is applied for this purpose. Firstly, the results of these three different systems that are presented are compared by country, followed by an intercontinental comparison. After that, the results of the Evaluation Globe Project are compared with the results of other similar studies. The overall analysis is used to finally address factors promoting and hindering the establishment and development of national M&E structures identified and future challenges.
Reinhard Stockmann is Senior Professor at Saarland University and Director of the Centre for Evaluation (CEval).
From 1997 to 2021, he was Professor of Sociology at Saarland University. During this time, he founded CEval in 2002 and initiated several master’s programs, including the international program “Master of Evaluation and Measurement in International Development” (MABLE). He was a founding member of the German Evaluation Society (DeGEval) and long-time editor of the Zeitschrift für Evaluation. Stockmann has published extensively on evaluation theory, methodology, and practice, and has led numerous evaluations as well as evaluation capacity building initiatives worldwide.
His current research focuses on the global institutionalization of evaluation. Between 2020 and 2023, case study volumes on Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific were published, with a final volume on Africa planned for 2025.
Professionalization for what? Evaluation between aspiration and reality
Global crises, the erosion of evidence-based policy, and rapid technological change—particularly through artificial intelligence—are fundamentally changing the framework for evaluation. Evaluators face growing demands: their skills must become more diverse, their roles more flexible, and their actions more strategic. What does this mean for the profession itself?
The keynote address will examine key aspects of what professionalization is actually aimed at in light of radical societal changes, and the (new) conditions and limitations of professional evaluation. It will also focus on key structural challenges—in particular, the decline in continuing education opportunities in the field of evaluation, as well as the reduction of evaluation positions in institutions in some European countries that were once considered pioneers in the institutionalization of evaluation. Thus, while the demands on evaluators are steadily increasing, institutional training opportunities and the number of professionally established positions are simultaneously shrinking—a tension that threatens sustainable professionalization.
Based on empirical findings and practical examples, we will discuss how professionalism is shaped in this field of tension – and what implications this has or could have for the further development of the field. The invitation is to rethink one's own role as evaluators and to actively shape the profession – as a learning, adaptive, and effective community.
Stefanie Krapp heads the Evaluation Department at the Lifelong Learning Center (LLC) at the University of Bern. Here, she is responsible for the evaluation study program and, until the end of 2024, the World Bank's renowned International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET). She has 25 years of experience in the field of evaluation, particularly in the context of development cooperation: at the Center for Evaluation (CEval) at Saarland University, as an integrated long-term expert in Laos and Costa Rica, as Senior Evaluation Officer at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and as a Head of Department at the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval). Her work focuses on the development and implementation of M&E systems, Theory-based evaluations, Evaluation Capacity Development (ECD), and, within this context, the design and implementation of training programs in evaluation. She studied sociology and political science at the University of Mannheim and Indiana University (USA) and received her PhD at Saarland University.