May 2012

 Currently the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) is very actively trying to enhance the policy and social relevance of its organization and practice. As part of this exercise an extensive stakeholder analysis was performed by the Vlerick Management School reflecting on how stakeholders currently perceive INBO, what they would prefer as a future development of INBO’s workings and to highlight some strategic future options for INBO. Besides external actors such as policy representatives and other stakeholder groups, the experts working at INBO were also involved in the reflections. An important part of these reflections touches upon the policy relevance of the work of INBO, which make it an interesting, dynamic and challenging science policy interface case.

SPIRAL will analyse the evaluative framework used by Vlerick so as to compare it to the SPI-framework being developed in the SPIRAL project. As such we can learn from the Managements School approach and INBO and the Management School can hopefully learn from the specific SPIRAL focus. We will also analyse the Management School’s recommendations, how they are perceived by the INBO experts, the strategic choices made by the management board of INBO and evaluate how the SPI-future of INBO as such is constructed and how it can be evaluated from an SPI-perspective. SPIRAL will also in close collaboration with INBO and their partners look into how the strategic choices work out in real life SPI-practice and see how the SPIRAL expertise can contribute with tools, evaluation criteria and lessons learned from other case studies.

Contact: Hans Keune