The Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague hosted this year’s conference of the Czech Evaluation Society (CES), which traditionally focuses on current challenges and trends in the evaluation of public policies, projects, and development cooperation. The central theme of this year’s conference, “A Changing World, Changing Evaluation,” reflected a dynamic global environment and the need to adapt evaluation approaches to new conditions.
The conference offered a rich professional programme addressing key challenges in the field of evaluation. Discussions focused, for example, on commissioning evaluations, dealing with complexity, evaluation in education, and development cooperation. The programme also included a dedicated panel on project evaluation and the implementation of long-term strategies in education, as well as a workshop entitled “Measuring the Unmeasurable.” An important part of the programme was the interactive Open Space format, which enabled participants to jointly explore responses to ongoing changes in both the Czech and international contexts. More than 80 experts from various sectors attended the conference, including representatives of public administration (e.g. the Ministry of Regional Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and Ministry of Education), academia (CZU and other universities), non-profit organisations, and private consulting and evaluation companies. The programme thus created valuable opportunities for sharing experience across institutions and connecting key actors within the evaluation community.
The Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences was represented at the conference by the Vice-Dean for International Relations, Petra Chaloupková, who presented a contribution entitled “A Changing World, Changing Evaluation: Experiences from CZU Projects in Cambodia.” In collaboration with Ph.D. student Sreykhouch Ek, she shared practical insights from the implementation and evaluation of CZU development projects in Cambodia, highlighting the challenges of evaluation in a different cultural and institutional context and emphasizing the importance of participatory approaches and adapting methodologies to local conditions.
CZU students also achieved notable success in the student evaluation competition. Among the awardees were Eke Francis Ikechukwu, Vargas Moreira Maria Victoria, Castro Martinez Paula Andrea, and Fahmy Anna Mohamed Refaat Ahmed, who presented the topic “From Theory to Practice: Student Evaluation of the AgriConnect Cambodia Project.” Their project demonstrated how theoretical knowledge of evaluation can be effectively applied in a real development project and contribute to its improvement.
The faculty’s participation in the conference confirms its long-term engagement in international development activities and its emphasis on the quality of evaluation as a key tool for increasing the impact of projects.
