LONG-TERM PLANNING, STRATEGIC FORESIGHT, AND EVALUATION
Byzantine & Christian Museum of Athens, Hybrid Format
The 6th Annual Conference of the Hellenic Evaluation Society (HES), titled "Long-Term Planning, Strategic Foresight & Evaluation," was successfully held on 9 November 2023.
The conference focused on issues of long-term planning and the role of evaluation in strategic foresight, which is gaining increasing importance in analysing and evaluating public policies within the global dialogue on transformative change.
Global challenges such as climate change, accelerated technological and digital transformation, global networks, and other megatrends are expected to bring about profound changes that will shape the future of our societies in the coming decades. These trends, recognized as priorities by governments and international organizations, intensify the evaluators' efforts to gather and process relevant data to develop forward-looking evaluations and provide policymakers with objective insights.
Looking toward the future and considering the rapid development of transformative trends, evaluation must adapt its methods and tools to enable ex-ante impact assessments and ex-post evaluations. This involves integrating new approaches into the theory of change, exploring methods and tools for long-term planning, and embedding them into evaluation practices.
Long-term strategic planning, incorporating foresight methods, develops alternative future scenarios through systematic, participatory, and interdisciplinary approaches. These efforts aim to prepare for challenges, risks, or opportunities. With a focus on adaptability and sustainable development, such planning supports policymaking and strategic decision-making across various domains, enhancing resilience.
Keeping pace with current developments and within an established evaluation culture, evaluative approaches are adopting a more complex and long-term perspective to analyse multiple crises and challenges. These approaches aim to expand and deepen the knowledge base used to support decision-making mechanisms. Evaluators are revisiting evaluation criteria, tools, and methods, investing in holistic and innovative approaches to the theory of change, and seeking new skills to produce forward-looking evaluations with a clear future-oriented direction.
The goal of the 6th Annual Conference was to promote public dialogue on integrating long-term strategic planning methods and processes into the analysis and evaluation of policies. This is particularly relevant in a complex environment of multiple crises and challenges, where the focus of evaluation has shifted from studying expected or predictable impacts to analysing multiple future scenarios and developing modular and flexible models within the theory of change.
At the end of the conference, the HES Annual Awards were announced.
CONFERENCE SESSIONS
The conference program was structured into three sessions:
- Integrating Long-Term Strategic Planning into the Development and Evaluation of Public Policies
- Strategic Foresight and Evaluation of Future Developments and Transformations
- Best Practices in Evaluation
PRESENTATIONS
Giannis Mastrogeorgiou, Special Secretary for Long-Term Planning, Presidency of the Government
Session 1 – Integrating Long-Term Strategic Planning into the Development and Evaluation of Public Policies
Panagiotis Petrakis, Emeritus Professor, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA): «Greece: Towards an Institutional Foundation for Strategic Long-Term Planning for Greece 2035»
Alexandros Dimitrakopoulos, Envoy Minister B, Director of Strategic and Operational Planning and the Foreign Policy Planning Centre, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "Integrating Long-Term Planning in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Challenges and Prospects"
Ioannis Tsanis, Special Advisor to the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection: "Civil Protection: Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's Scenarios—Disaster Response Methodologies"
Session 2 – Strategic Foresight and Evaluation of Future Developments and Transformations
Jaana Tapanainen, Secretary General of the Government Report on the Future and the Strategic Foresight Team, Office of the Prime Minister of Finland
Baptiste Petitjean, Advisor to the High Commission for Planning (under the Prime Minister of France): "Looking Ahead is the First Step Toward Action (from Le Plan ou l'anti-hasard, 1965)"
Konstantinos Konstantopoulos, Legal Advisor to the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection: "Climate Crisis: Evaluation and Revision of Climate-Related Plans—The Example of Spatial Planning"
Konstantinos Stefanou, Director of the Sir William Dale Centre for Legislative Studies, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London): «Policy Analysis and Integrating Strategic Foresight into Legislative Practices»
Session 3 – Best Practices in Evaluation: Announcement of the Hellenic Evaluation Society Awards
Award in the category Young Emerging Evaluator 2023: Kalliopi Loukaki, for her research work: «Financial Contagion in Interbank Networks»
Award in the category Best Applied Integrated Evaluation Methodology: Ioannis Soldatos, for the «Scoreboard Methodology for Quantitative Portfolio Management of Digital Transformation Projects»
Award in the category Optimal Utilisation of Proposed Evaluation Conclusions: To the General Secretariat for Equality and Human Rights and the Special Service for the Coordination and Monitoring of European Social Fund Actions for the «Evaluation of the Functioning of Support Structures for Women Victims of Violence and the Integration of Findings into Equality Policies»
