Evaluation in Finland
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2000-03-09
2000-08-25

One can say that in Finland there was evaluation before evaluation. Applied empirical social research started well in the 19th century, often aligned with the generation of social statistics. Once economics arose, it involved evaluation of  policy options and outcomes as well. (Ahonen 1994).
   Evaluation arose in selected sectors of social and economic policies before it became a field of interest in wide academic circles and public governments. In Finland's development co-operation evaluation was going strong as early as in the 1980s. Evaluation under that very name started as a vigorous activity in the further fields of health care (e.g., Sintonen 1981) and social welfare before the activity was generally widespread. The Academy of Finland launched meticulous evaluations of selected fields of scientific research before the national boom of evaluation started. Later followed evaluations of research, teaching, management, or two or all at the universities. In the overall field of education "formative" and "summative" evaluation were well known since the 1970s.
   In time, the first PhD dissertation on generic public policy and program evaluation appeared in Finland (Ahonen 1983). The term appeared first in the annual budgeting guidelines rendered by the Ministry of Finance in the mid-1980s. In the context of a large set of projects of public sector reform the idea sprung up that their evaluations, by then well under way, could be defined as a first national programme of evaluation. Dr. Markku Temmes moved from the Finnish Public Management Institute ("HAUS") to be Professor at the University of Helsinki Department of Political Science with the specific motivation of providing for such evaluations. International expertise was recruited for the purpose as well (Pollitt et al. 1997). The same practice is continuing (Ahonen et al. 2000, Ormond et al. 2000), sponsored by the Ministry of Finance. 
   In the meantime, the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council (korkeakoulujen arviointineuvosto) arose in the Finnish national government. The Council commissions evaluations of excellence in teaching and considers the applications of candidate institututions to receive the certification as new polytechnics. In the context of the same reforms in the Finnish national government the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health Care STAKES arose with evaluation as one of its definite tasks. The Finnish State Audit Office continued its long-term move towards evaluation as well.
   Finnish evaluation capacity received international recognition since Finland joined the EU in 1995. Dr. Elisabeth Helander was recruited to be the Director of the EU structural funds evaluations, and Dr. Hilkka Summa became the Section Head of evaluations related to the EU budgeting. Finland's EU membership gave rise to the evaluation of the structural funds programmes as a particular new evaluation field. EU evaluation practices have had their impact upon practices now applied at the Academy of Finland in considering funding applications. The impact of the EU practices is felt, further, in the Finnish evaluation guidelines for the evaluation of development co-operation (MFA 1998).
   As an interesting development, the Provincial Boards (l��ninhallitukset), the administration offices of the national government involving representation of several ministries at the provincial  level, received in 1996 the explicit task of evaluating the rendition of public services in that level. A metaevaluation has lately been carried out of this activity (Ahonen 1999). Municipal councils no less have proceeded towards introducing evaluation (a reference in Finnish is available).
   In their overview of evaluation in Finland at the turn of the two millennia, the authors (Ahonen, Virtanen & Uusikyl� 1999/2000) conclude that evaluation is going increasingly strong in Finland. However, they conclude with no lesser stress that the quality of evaluation remains uneven, there are gaps in the capacity to evaluate, Finland still misses a strong corps of evaluators, and quasi-experimental and non-experimental empirical evaluation is underdeveloped in comparison to economic evaluation.
   In Finland there is so far only one dedicated university programme in evaluation. In that programme, threatened by extinction in 2002, the University of Tampere teaches evaluation together with general public and private sector auditing and performance auditing. The programme can be seen in the context of Finland's unique certification for public sector auditors (the "JHTT"). Reluctantly or less so, the auditors seeking certification must also take a test on their basic knowledge and skills in evaluation. Dedicated continuing education in evaluation in the social welfare field is arising as well.
   In late 1999 Dr. Petri Virtanen, Ms. Tuija Lindqvist and Prof. Dr. Pertti Ahonen became the first, signing members of the Finnish Evaluation Association. This is well defensible given the vigorous rise of evaluation associations all over the world and the overall importance of the activity. Dr. Virtanen became the first president of the new association.