Incentives and Monitoring the AKIS in ITALY

1. Incentives and Monitoring the AKIS in ITALY MIPAAF, cosvir-4 – SerenellaPuliga INEA – Ines dipaolo, valentina C. materia

2. the AKiS In italy (1) The Italian AKIS is VERY COMPLEX: FO 1

3. the AKiS in ITALY (2) • The EXT is a quite complex component, with different topics • The Support System is inside the EXT • The EXT system is coordinated by the public and implemented by different bodies • The Support system is managedonly by the PUBLIC: • High costs 2

4. Incentives for Players in the AKiS • In Italy there are specific incentives for each component (EDU, R&D, EXT) • The principal common incentive instrument is the dedicated FUNDING • The R&D and EXT components are mainly stimulated and evaluated basing on the project: public calls direct assignment negotiated procedure • In support of this, there are the MONITORING (for EXT) and the EVALUATION (for R&D) experiences, but notreiterated 3

5. Incentives for Universities and applied research (1) System evaluation A) Universities and national applied research: • How research is evaluated (indicators): Products: • Type and number of products weighed on the number of researchers • Quality, relevance, originality/ innovativity • Internationalization and/or competitive potential, research exploitation People: • Mobility, training, access to IT/EU projects • Capacity to attract resources Source: CIVR (VTR ‘01-’03; VQR ’04-’08) • How money is allocated for research: • Structures, staff: MIUR-MIPAF cover fixed costs • Projects : MIUR MIPAAF support projects and issue calls 4

6. Incentives for Universities and applied research (2) Project evaluation B) R&D financed by the REGIONS: EX-ANTE evaluation: competitive procedure to access funds selection criteria (=INCENTIVES): • Quality of the project and its management • Coherence with regional programming • Results transferring/applying EXT services involvement • Productive sector involvement Regions are less interested in the ON GOING and EX-POST monitoring and evaluation activities 5

7. Incentives for Extension (1) • The EXT consists of: • Numerous and different activities (different organization and structures among Regions) • Immaterial and qualitative ( human capital) • Described by qualitative indicators • Since 1990, almost 3 monitoring exercises, different for organizational methods and contents Common evaluated aspects: • Policy objectives they respond to • Contents • Methodology • Users involved Difficult to realize a complete & accurate monitoring act. 6

8. Incentives for Extension (2) • Currently, Italy is collecting data to monitor the implementation of specific FAS measures (111-114-115). Main criteria: • Financial resources • Criteria for selections of farms or presence of priority • Inclusion in Integrated projects • N° FAS advisors • N° of beneficiaries, • Total amount accepted 7

9. Incentives for Ag. Education (1) Secondary education: • Evaluation managed by the national INVALSI: reference for the international PISA evaluation model reflecting a systemic vision • Main indicators: • CONTEXT: population, scholar age, education supply, participation, etc. • INPUT: financial resources, human resources (n. teachers, their stability, absenteeism, etc.), structural resources (e.g. labs), students, territorial context • PROCESS: school organization, teachers professionalism, activities for the students, relationship school-families-territory • OUTCOME: learning texts’ results, students outcomes 8

10. Incentives for Ag. Education (2) Higher education (University): • The ordinary fund (FFO) is distributed: - on rewarding basis (<10%) - on historical basis (>90%) • At institutional level an assessment of didactics quality is imposed, but it does not affect the funds appropriation • Criteria linked to the research quality evaluation • Criteria linked to didactics evaluation but not its quality: • N. professors/n. students • N. current students • N. graduates employed 9

11. ARE Incentives Coherent? • Debate on the relationship between the AKIS components as a distinctive Italian approach for the last twenty years: ‘90s: agricultural services system ’00s: agricultural knowledge network • The most important incentives used are: - legislative instruments, - dedicated projects • BUT recently attention on the links btw the AKIS components at all levels, also in connection with the FAS system and the other Extension initiatives promoted by the EU policy for the RD • Then the deregulation, typical of the network, is getting the upper hand over the coordination 10

12. MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF AKIS POLICY in Italy • NOT a single system of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of AKIS policies or of its individual components, but different experiences and situations • In the cases of dedicated funding (e.g. EU), indicators for M&E procedures are those provided by their programs • In the case of structured funds, there are: . - assessment systems more consolidated for EDU; - some experiences of a more organic (systematic) R&D evaluation (e.g. CIVR) These assessments influence political decisions 11

13. MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF AKIS POLICY - An interesting experience (1) a. Characteristics and strong points: a.1. facilitates the process of coordination of efforts/initiatives   a.2. is an advanced and easy instrument:            - implemented and available on-line           - requires only detecting the main phases of research, all easily classifiable (dropdown menu) according to shared classification            - can also be extended to other realities and even in EU “Information system on the regional agricultural research” created by INEA on behalf of the RRN-AR involving at present 15 Regions implemented with about 1.500 researches to provide the regional policy makers with a multimedia information instrument (a data base on-line) supporting their policy decisions 12

14. MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF AKIS POLICY - An interesting experience (2) a.3. Provides multi-regional or regional statistics already compiled: • Typology of actors (funders and researchers) • Costs (total c., public c.) Structural Information • N. of researches • Typology (basic, applied, ...) • - Contents (NABS, CRIS, productive sectors…) Contents Innovations • - Type (product, process,…) • - Techical characteristics (agronomic, biochemical,…) • - Economic, productive, environmental and social impacts • How the products are presented (software, papers, …) Methods/instruments to divulge research results Results transfer 13

15. MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF AKIS POLICY - An interesting experience (3) b. Some recent example (application of the data): Related to RDP objectives (e.g. tab. b.1) Analysis of R&I supply BIO-AGR, related to national sectoral policy (e.g. b.2) b.1. Coherence with env. challenges "Health Check" CAP b.2. “BIO” research supply 14

16. MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF AKIS POLICY – Some proposals The monitoring systems (MS) should be simple and essential MS must directly involve the actuators of the initiatives (as much as possible in real time), which must find in them benefit and interest The complexity of data collection suggests creating separate monitoring systems for the individual AKIS components The task of connecting together data and analysis of each component should be left to the evaluation activities(to be accompanied with qualitative in-depth analysis) 15

17. Thank you for your attention! puliga@issds.it v.c.materia@univpm.it dipaolo@inea.it