Abstract
Innovative governance approaches addressing sustainability challenges increasingly translate into policy programs that pursue societal transformative change via experimentation and learning. Methodological innovation for assessing and evaluating programs and their impact however lag behind such developments. ‘Transition’-oriented policy programs need assessment methodologies that appreciate their emergent nature, that help identify systemic barriers inhibiting transformation and that offer involved actors feedback to facilitate actionable learning. Contributing to this need, this paper presents the ‘Framework for Transformative Learning and Action’, developed to assess a Dutch learning-based policy program (the Inter-administrative Program on Vibrant Rural Areas) that combined a short duration (two years) with two long-term transition ambitions: stimulating inter-administrative collaboration and developing a (socially, ecologically and economically) “vibrant” countryside. The framework integrates insights from the fields of transition studies, policy studies and reflexive monitoring, and practical insights developed within the evaluated program. The paper critically discusses the two functions of the framework in practice. Firstly, it enables evaluators to assess the relative value of program actions in the light of program ambitions. Secondly, it may serve as a monitoring tool, helping actors to reflect on the relevance of their actions in the context of the ambitions. The paper concludes that the framework is useful in explicating barriers to system change and in identifying valuable actions related to the ambitions. However, it potentially runs the risk of highlighting systemic barriers that actors cannot cope with in their daily professional practice, and, thus, of inciting a sense of paralysis among the users of this framework.
Presenters
Hilde BrouwersPhD Candidate, Athena Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands Barbara Regeer
Associate Professor, Athena Institute / Amsterdam Sustainability Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands Anne Loeber
Associate Professor, Athena Institute, VU University, Netherlands
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Education, Assessment and Policy
KEYWORDS
Assessment, Integrated, Policy, Science-policy, Transformation, Learning, Reflexivity, Rural, Sustainable, Agriculture
