4th Annual International Meeting of Directors of Government-Based Research Institutes
September 5th 2001
The Mirabeau Hotel, Lausanne, Switzerland
I. Roundtable presentation
The meeting was opened by Ann-Marie Begler, Director General of the Swedish National Council of Crime Prevention. In attendance were 15 representatives of 11 different countries. All the attendants gave a brief description of their institutes and their most important concerns and projects. The latest information from the institutes can always be found on the following web-sites:
The Netherlands
http://www.minjust.nl/
New Zealand
http://www.justice.govt.nz
Switzerland
http://www.statistik.admin.ch/eindex.htm
UK
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
Canada
http://www.canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/rs/index.html
Sweden
http://www.bra.se
USA
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/
France
http://www.cesdip.com/
The UNICRI, Italy
http://www.unicri.it/
HEUNI, Finland
http://www.heuni.fi/
Poland
A list of on-going projects can be acquired from Beata Grusczcynska, bgrusz@supermedia.pl.
II. Follow-up on last years meeting
Information on the status of the Campbell Collaboration was given by Paul Wiles. Presently the administration of the Collaboration is situated in Maryland, U.S.A. The Second Annual Campbell Collaboration Colloquium will be held on February 21-22, 2002, at the University of Pennsylvania. There is an on-going debate regarding what kind of information the database actually should contain. Some wishes have come up on a catalogue of different methods in the database, and the collaboration has recently recruited an expert on qualitative research.
In some fields meta-analysis are planned, specifically in areas where results in particular vary. The directors meeting discussed some difficulties with the Collaboration, for instance how to spread research results which are not written in English and the importance of avoiding that the Collaboration includes only a small exclusive group of male researchers. More information about the Campbell Collaboration can be found at http://www.aic.gov.au/campbellcj/
Regarding the English translations of the institutes’ products there still are some matters that can be improved. The directors meeting thinks that it is very important to facilitate fast and smooth communication and information-exchange between the institutes. One way of doing this can be to make sure that the links between our different web-sites are correct and complete. Another step in rendering the co-operation more effective can be to publish a list of contact persons on specific topics on the web. The directors meeting suggests that the different institutes during the forthcoming year should work towards more standardized and structured key-words and search-engines on the web-pages. A long-perspective goal would be to have a common search-function.
Shortly after the directors meeting in Toronto Canada, in 1999 a listserver for the research directors was inaugurated. Unfortunately it seems that the server has not functioned as planned. The NIJ, who administer the server, will now examine what can be done to correct the problems.
III. Dissemination and implementation of our results
The chairman for the session, Roberta Russell, started by stating that although our institutes produce a large amount of findings every year, the implementation and dissemination is not yet satisfying. A project is often considered as finished when the report is written. Perhaps there is need for a change of perspective towards a view where a research-project is not finished until it is implemented. Different techniques and ideas that can be used for improvement were brought up and discussed:
- Target research. Publishing two different versions of reports, one more technical and methodological report for researchers, and one more practical for practitioners. The practically oriented version should be considered as a manual with guidelines. To make the dissemination better it can be worth hire educated authors.
- Fresh, brief and essential information. It should be secured that constantly updated information and statistics from our agencies are available. Turning to practitioners it can be valuable to offer brief fact-sheets on one page, using summaries and best practises.
- Reference-groups. It can be useful to use some practitioners in key positions as a reference-group, to make the practitioners involved in the projects and increase the projects legitimacy. It is thus important to consult the reference-group continuing, not only presenting a completed report. Reference-groups can also be used in formulating questions to be used in for example evaluations. Otherwise there is a risk that researchers and practitioners speak different languages. The Home Office are planning to organize reference-groups from each professional group in the justice system.
- Contacts with the media. Especially in smaller countries it is important to create an image of the agencies as experts who preferably should be consulted. It is a good tip to try to get the newspapers to write out the web-address of the institute. For agencies that have a more independent position, it could be a good idea to evaluate the cases when they fail to take part in the debate in certain issues. It could be very valuable to co-ordinate the releases of different publications from the institutes that concerns the same topic, for example statistics and evaluations in the actual field could be released simultaneously.
- Internet. Some of the agencies are now publishing a few of their reports only on the Internet. It is important to remember that web-publishing often requires layout, re-writing and special competences to be effective. An alternative to full-text web-publishing would be to offer a summary of the report on the web, and a full report to be ordered in a paper-copy. The Home Office are currently working on a Internet-solution where it will be possible to register for different subject areas, and then get running reports by e-mail about the latest news on the subject.
The private sector can contribute with a lot of inspiration and ideas on Internet-solutions. One example is a function where one after downloading or ordering a report gets proposals for other relevant work on the same subject.
- Alternative channels of information. Besides the Internet, mediums like television and video can be used successfully for dissemination. One example from Sweden is the satellite-conference which the National Council for Crime Prevention arranged in late autumn 2000. Thousands of youths participated through satellite in the conference, and could put questions to among others the Minister of Justice. The conference is now available on videotape, and can be required from the Council. Schools are in general very good co-operation partners to reach out to youths and get them interested in our questions.
III. How to secure scientific independence and a critical approach to “everyday knowledge”
In most of the represented countries the agencies’ research is independent. The governments however influence the programs of operation. Even though most of the institutes consider the independence towards the policy-makers not to be a very problematic issue, a possible problem can rise if the governors not experience that the agency is valued the money due to shortage in quality and results. The only way to prevent a problem as such is to work even harder with quality securing.
An important task for the agencies in the future is to increase the qualified criticism on the reports. We must try to organize proper forums for this, for example seminaries with experts on the field. The international criticism can also be more systematic and settled. An exchange between the UK and the Netherlands with overhaul of each others programs and reports has previously taken place, which could be a good idea for other countries to adopt.
It is also important to have a vital debate about the research agenda. There is a tendency towards a more conservative agenda, which is centred around the G8-countries. Many countries are not represented in the international dialogue, a problem that should concern all of us.
IV. Potential collaborative research
- Elmar Weitekamp, co-ordinator of the Eurogang project, made a presentation on gang-research in general and the Eurogang in particular. Updated information about the Eurogang is available on the Eurogang homepage: http://www.umsl.edu/~ccj/eurogang/euroganghome.htm
- Cristián Riego from the Justice Studies Center of the Americas, JSCA, presented an on-going study on judicial reform in four different countries in Latin America.
- A collaborative project for all our institutes for the coming year is to improve the cross-national communication. The web-sites should have abstracts in English available, and the search-functions should if possible develop through less search on headlines, and more into key-words or subject areas. The Home Office are presently working on making their web-site more effective. When their standards and recommendations are completed Paul Wiles will forward them to the other institutes.
V. Date and chair for the next meeting
The directors meeting decided that the next annual meeting of Directors of Government-based Institutes will take place in Toledo, Spain, in connection with the ESC 2002 meeting. The Home Office will arrange and chair the meeting. An important task before the next meeting, that concerns not only the coming chair, but all of us, is to get a representation as broad as possible.