13th Annual Conference of the UK Evaluation Society: Conference report
| Author | Anne Markiewicz |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X0700700208 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
50 Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2007
The 13th Annual Conference of the United Kingdom
Evaluation Society (UKES), ‘Great Expectations?
Meeting the Changing Needs of Stakeholders in
Evaluation’, was held in Leeds, England on 22–23
November 2007. This article is a brief report on the
conference.
As a long-time participant in AES conferences, and currently living and working
in Oxford, I was interested to attend the UKES Annual Conference in November
2007 to acquire a better understanding of the practice of evaluation and its
challenges in the UK and the broader European context. This is a brief report on
the conference and the themes that emerged in general, and for me in particular as
a newcomer to the UK.
The conference theme was ‘Great Expectations—Meeting the Changing Needs
of Stakeholders in Evaluation’. This theme resonated with my interest in problem-
solving and negotiation with stakeholders, particularly with commissioners
of evaluations. There were approximately 200 conference delegates with
representation predominantly from the UK and other European countries,
with three delegates attending from New Zealand. Examples of organisations
represented from the UK included the Home Offi ce, National Health Service, local
authorities, Big Lottery Fund, Charities Evaluation Services, Tavistock Institute,
a range of universities and various consultancy organisations. From Europe,
examples of organisations participating included the European Commission in
Brussels, the ILO in Geneva and the OECD in Paris.
The 12th Annual Conference held in 2006 in London as a combined UKES/
European Evaluation Society (EES) event was a larger and more elaborate affair
in contrast to this 2007 conference in Leeds. The 2006 UKES/EES conference
highlighted the infl uence of different governments and organisations on the
conduct of evaluation and how it is used to inform policy development and
deliberation in different cultures. The issue of the impact on evaluations of
different structural and cultural contexts was also evident in the 13th Annual
Conference in Leeds. It may be a truism, but undertaking evaluations in the UK
setting, and within the structure of the European Union, presents an entirely
different level of complexity to that presented in the Australasian context.
Despite the contextual differences, there were signifi cant similarities to
Australasia in the issues and debates raised during the conference. I did fi nd
Anne Markiewicz
Anne Markiewicz is Director of
Anne Markiewicz and Associates,
Melbourne and is a recent past AES
Board member.
PO Box 5052, Alphington,
VIC 3078. Email: <anne@
anneconsulting.com.au>
conference report
13th Annual Conference of
the UK Evaluation Society:
conference report
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