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[ D] The German Society for Evaluation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Evaluation e.V. (DeGEval)) defines evaluation in general as the systematic investigation of the use or value of an object.
Dependent on the object of the evaluation and the available data obtained for analysis, different qualitative and/or quantitative methods can be used, either individually or in coordination with each other, based on the advantages of each individual method. In this way, relations of cause and effect can be modelled as realistically as possible and explained. The evaluations have three key features: (I) the object of evaluation (the type of political intervention in research and technology), (II) the choice of evaluation method (e.g. peer review, case study, technological preview, cost-benefit analysis, quantitative methods) and (III) the time of the evaluation, relative to the object (ex-ante, monitoring, ex-post). Among the objects of evaluation is society, for example in terms of its programmes, projects, products, measures taken, organisations, politics, technology and research. The Documentation at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour (BmWA) on the subject of evaluation describes the individual methods of evaluation (available in german only).
There is no such thing as a standardised method of evaluation. Dependent on the type of evaluation, a combination of methods should be used that allows for the most positive statements to be made about the area of investigation. The Industrial Economics Research Department uses econometric methods in the evaluation of political measures dealing with innovation. These methods have the advantage of being objective and of saving time and costs, since the time-consuming process of data collection is rendered unnecessary by use of the databases available to the ZEW. Furthermore, these databases can be combined in various ways, allowing data to be collated into a useful format.
