Thematic evaluations of public research institutes
 
Accreditation Council of the Agency for Higher Education and Science (5th session, May 26th, 2010) initiated the procedure of thematic evaluation for all public research institutes, pursuant to the article 24 of the Act on Scientific Activity and Higher Education (Official Gazette no 45/09) and Thematic Evaluation Procedure (Class: 003-08/10-02/0003; File no: 355-01-10-2).
Accreditation Council of the Agency also adopted the documents for regulating thematic evaluation procedure.
 
The goal of the thematic evaluation is to assess the efficiency and appropriateness of publically funded research institutes in Republic of Croatia. Such overarching approach will result in the analysis of the condition and the direction of the possible development for Croatia's public research institutes. The analysis will further on present an integrated overview of the efficiency and justifiability of conducting scientific research as independent institutions and possibilities of their integration with other institutions within the national science system.

Final outcome of thematic evaluation may be the expert committee’s recommendations to

 (I) merge the institutes within same or similar scientific field;
 (II) (re)integrate with the universities; or
(III) form national research centers.

Further on, the expert committee’s recommendations and final report will serve as basis to the National Council for Science for its discussions and finally creation of the national strategic document Network of Public Research Institutes (pursuant to the Act on Scientific Activity and Higher Education).

OBJECTIVES

Evaluation will asses three main components:

1. The focus of research and research productivity:
- assessing the justifiability and specificity of the institute (whether the research can be done within the universities or are there any overlaps with the other similar institutes);
- determining the target group for the institute’s services and products, users and beneficiaries of knowledge and technology transfer;
- assessing the scientific productivity, contracted projects, publication activity, research assistants/PhD candidates, number, structure and productivity of research staff, age and gender structure, etc.;
- regional and international relevance of the research institute and consequential financial recognition.

2. Financial sources of the institute and their use:
-assessing the infrastructure: equipment and space, its effective usage and time-sharing;
- assessing the financial management, the utilization of public funds and strategy of financial profitability.

3. Organization and management:
- assessing organizational structure;
- assessing institute’s management;
- assesing the quality assurance system.

TIME FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATIONS
Beginning:            June 2010
End:                     May 2011

SHORT OVERVIEW OF THE EVALUATION PROCESS
1. Informing the institute about the beginning of the evaluation process
2. Appointment of the expert committee members

Agency for Science and Higher Education will appoint the expert committee for each scientific field – 5 fields and 5 committees. Expert committee will consist of:
- 1 researcher, expert in institute’s field of research - from abroad
- 1 researcher, expert in research institutions management - from abroad
- 1 National Council for Science representative
- 1 member of ASHE – coordinator (no voting rights)
- translator.

3. Assessment of the institute’s self-evaluation report by the expert committee
4. Visit (working language Croatian and English )
5. Final report