Annex 7:

7PR: Expert Knowledge and Policy-Making: Sharing Czech and American Experience

1. Project description

2.  Project purposes and goals

The goal of the project was identified as the support of public policy research to serve the practical purpose of strengthening institutional cooperation between the two groups. This, in turn, serves the practical application of strengthening partnerships between the institutes and their respective governments.

The objective was to identify the similarities and differences in methods of collaboration, cooperation and communication between university-based research units and public administration bodies in the Czech Republic and the USA. The specific issues to be explored were as follows:

§          Identifying similar and different methods of building bridges between the research institute and a) the government and b) the public through their strengths and weaknesses.

§          Identifying and culling the information (i.e. “mapping” the current literature on the subject of such partnerships) for a comprehensive bibliography that will serve future collaborative work between the institutes as well as independent researchers in the field.

§          Analyzing effective partnerships: identifying and discussing the applicability of methods used for academic/government partnership-building in the respective countries.

The project included three main phases:

1.      Sharing experience: preparation of an overview of applied methods for policy, shared by both partners.

2.      Roundtables held in Athens, Georgia and Prague, Czech Republic, and the publishing of their minutes and conclusions.

3.      Future projects development. The third planned step was the development of a list of specific projects that could be undertaken by participating institutions in the future, including a bibliography developed for each of the suggested projects.

3. Project realization

Some marginal problems occurred during the project realization. Due to unexpected time constrains on the CVIOG side, some tasks were completed behind schedule, but this did not influence the final timeframe. The geographical and cultural distance affected cooperation more than the project designers anticipated. However, these difficulties were partially overcome during the project as the organizations enriched the disposable knowledge by different perspectives.

4. Project outputs, outcomes and impacts

           Thomas J. Pavlak of CVIOG provided CESES and CHES with several American papers written by experts in policy-making. CESES and CHES took advantage of them in their work.

           Ales Bednarik from CESES during his internship at CVIOG participated in several CVIOG projects.

           The following policy papers were developed:

1.       CESES (2002): Building Bridges Between the Research Institute, the Government and the Public -The Approach and Experience of CESES. Prague. 2CESES-ENG.RTF

2.       CHES (2002): The Role of Research in the Development and Implementation of Tertiary Education Policy. Prague. 3CHES-ENG.RTF

3.       CVIOG (2003): Building Bridges Between the Research Institute, the Government and the Public -The Approach and Experience of CVIOG. Prague. 4CVIOG-ENG.RTF

4.       CESES (2003): Expert Knowledge and Policy-Making: Sharing Czech and American Experience. Comparison of Three Approaches. Prague. 5Comparison.RTF

As the outcome, a strengthening of research initiatives within each participating organization was stimulated. The project also served each of the countries by facilitating the strengthening of relationships between the university and government partners. On a practical level, the project also served the broader aim of facilitating public policy development that in turn impacts socio-economic development directly.