Suchergebnisse

The protection of the Baltic Sea ecosystem is exacerbated by the social, environmental and economic complexities of governing European fisheries. Increased stakeholder participation and knowledge integration are suggested to improve the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), suffering from legitimacy, credibility and compliance problems. As a result, the CFP was revised in 2002 to involve fisheries representatives, NGOs and other stakeholders through so called Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) in the policy process. We address the RAC's task to incorporate stakeholder knowledge into the EU's fisheries governance system in empirical and theoretical perspectives. Drawing on a four-stage governance concept we subsequently suggest that a basic problem is a mismatch between participation purpose (knowledge inclusion) and the governance stage at which RACs are formally positioned (evaluation of management proposals). We conclude that, if the aim is to broaden the knowledge base of fisheries management, stakeholders need to be included earlier in the governance process.

Objectives of evaluation The European Citizens' Panel (ECP) initiative was evaluated by a team of external specialists who were asked to assess whether ECP meets its self chosen goals and keeps up with the established standards of process evaluation outlined in the respective literature. The external evaluation focused on the quality of the process: What was successful, what needed improvement and how satisfied were the participants with the procedures of their involvement? The evaluation focused especially on the European component of the process. How was the evaluation performed? The external evaluation used different inter-related methods (see section 2 of the report) which enabled the researchers to validate results obtained with one method with results from another method (triangulation). The methods used for this evaluation included interviews with participants, European and regional organizers, facilitators and key-stakeholders, a standardized survey directed to all participants during and after the deliberations, systematic observations of the evaluation team made during the pan-European panel, the self-evaluation of the regional panels as well as an analysis of ECP's website. Conclusions The evaluation of the European Citizens' Panel confirmed that the main objectives of the project had been accomplished. Furthermore, the project demonstrated the feasibility of organising citizen participation at the European level and provided sufficient evidence that such a process can produce reliable, substantial and instructive results. Furthermore, the participants were overwhelmingly satisfied with their role and function in the process. They also stated that their interest in EU-policies did increase. External stakeholders have praised the process and its outcomes as well, although it is much too early to expect any policy changes or implementations of the recommendations. Early responses by policy makers suggest that they are willing to use the regional results in the respective areas while the European policy makers were more interested in the process itself and its feasibility for European policy formation in general. Given these positive impressions and impacts, there were also problems and deficits. Notwithstanding that the process was deliberately planned as a bottom-up approach, the process lacked clear leadership and an unambiguous distribution of authority. In addition, more efficient management procedures would have been advisable (i.e. in terms of smaller task forces). There were also minor problems with respect to fairness, transparency, and competence. These problems were never severe enough to compromise the process itself or the validity of its results. One should be careful, however, in the interpretation of the prioritized recommendations as their prioritization was developed by a voting procedure, which should and can not be taken as a representative view on the subject. Overall, the European Citizens' Panel proved that it is possible to initiate a dialogue on a complex issue on the European level. The methodological and organizational experiences made within this process will certainly foster and encourage the further development of a European culture of participation.

This design report reflects the inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation challenges of a large-scale research project that was lacking a designated problem and project constitution phase. Using the example of the Kopernikus project Energy Transition Navigation System (ENavi), we describe the challenges - the high number and strong heterogeneity of the project participants combined with the large size of the spatial frame of reference - which created particularly difficult conditions for inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation. We also highlight the role that funding conditions played in this situation. Specifically, we explain the particular challenges that the ENavi project faced in its efforts to achieve a common orientation, integration, and practice-actor participation as fundamental requirements for an inter- and trans - disciplinary research project. We also outline the approaches to solutions for these challenges developed by the project. Finally, we draw a number of lessons from the ENavi experience for interand transdisciplinary research regarding large-scale projects.

"Die Studie untersucht den Einsatz von Antwortlatenzen zur Messung der Stärke von Einstellungen im Bereich der Surveyforschung. Sie beschreibt verschiedene Möglichkeiten zur Messung von individuellen Reaktionszeiten in CATI-Surveys und zur Bereinigung dieser Messungen von Einflüssen, die von personalen, frageunabhängigen Antwortgeschwindigkeiten ('individuelle Basisgeschwindigkeiten') ausgehen. Dabei verdeutlicht sie auch die unterschiedlichen empirischen Konsequenzen, die mit der Nutzung verschiedener Maße von Basisgeschwindigkeit verbunden sind. Die Studie stellt zudem einen von den Autoren neu entwickelten Transformationsindex, den so genannten 'Residual-Score-Index', vor, der ein besseres Verfahren zur Kontrolle von Effekten frageunabhängiger Antwortgeschwindigkeiten bei der Messung von Antwortlatenzen ermöglicht als die Verfahren der klassischen Transformationsindizes (Difference-Score-Index, Ratio-Score-Index, Z-Score Index). Die Vorteile des neuen Residual-Score-Indexes werden in einer statistischen Analyse gezeigt, bei der die Moderatorfunktion des Indexes im Kontext einer multiplen Regressionsschätzung überprüft wird." (Autorenreferat)