Impact evaluation under discussion

In fall 2024, the QuiS conference for all Hessian universities took place in the Leitz Park of the camera manufacturer Leica in Wetzlar. As a networking and workshop meeting, the QuiS conference served as an in-depth exchange of ideas and best practices. The broad spectrum of QuiS includes topics and projects from the areas of internationality and diversity, future skills and mental health through to making university studies more flexible. The entire QuiS program is coordinated by the QuiS Service Center at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM) in Gießen.

Impact-oriented project evaluation: challenges, opportunities and experience

TU Darmstadt's internal project evaluation team took part in the QuiS conference in collaboration with the central evaluation of the UMRdivers project at Philipps-Universität Marburg with a workshop on project evaluation.

In the workshop, the two evaluation teams presented their respective projects EDuStart and UMRdivers and outlined their evaluation concept. Both teams use impact models in the evaluation process and demonstrated these as examples. Impact models represent work results and short-term to long-term effects of projects. They can facilitate communication in the evaluation process when it comes to differentiating project results and impacts and to make them measurable, for example by defining measurable indicators for achieving an impact.

In addition, key topics and challenges in project evaluation were discussed by the participants in the workshop.

The discussion focused on the importance of a central evaluation within projects, which enables expertise, quality assurance and an overarching view of the sub-projects. It was emphasized that the complexity of projects arises from legal framework conditions and cross-cutting issues. Working with impact models can help to make this complexity manageable for the evaluation.

Another important point for the workshop participants was the measurability and usability of the evaluation results. It was emphasized that a broad methodology leads to more useful results. Despite methodological and time-related hurdles, the call for impact evaluation in projects remains loud.

Another key topic was the question of how evaluation results can be meaningfully integrated and implemented. Results should be made visible and accessible so that they can be used for the further development of projects.

In conclusion, the exchange of experiences and results, both internally and externally, was described as indispensable for the success of evaluation projects.