| Abstract [eng] |
Topic of Master’s thesis in Management of Programmes and Projects is relevant, because evaluation principles and criteria setting for evaluation of research project proposals’ can heavily influence effectiveness of the whole competitive research funding system and affect development of research in Lithuania. Competitive research funding was introduced in Lithuania just four years ago, as a result, at the moment there are no detailed analyses on its research project applications’ evaluation system or its productivity, apart from basic statistics on the extent of proposals received, funding granted. Therefore, master’s thesis intends to analyse evaluation system of competitive research funding in Lithuania and its impact on institutional competitiveness. The object of the thesis – working of project proposals’ selection and evaluation system implemented by the Research Council of Lithuania. The objective of the thesis – to analyse evaluation system of competitive research funding in Lithuania and its impact on institutional competitiveness. The goals of the thesis: to examine the main theoretical principles for setting selection and evaluation criteria of research projects and to present the most common evaluation models of research projects; to characterise competitive research funding system in Lithuania, to examine selection process of research projects, and to describe evaluation practices and methods; to analyse the representativeness and validity of evaluation criteria for selecting research projects in programmes administered by the Research Council of Lithuania; to present the map of research and education institutions’ competitive ability, which is based on project proposals’ evaluation criteria, applied in programmes administered by the Research Council of Lithuania. Hypotheses: 1.significance and validity of the project’s idea is the main set of criteria in competitive research funding instruments, administered by the Research Council of Lithuania; 2. depending on the type of programme, administered by the Research Council of Lithuania, there are particular groups of institutions which enjoys success. The major methods used for analysis of evaluation system of competitive research funding in Lithuania are analysis of documents (legislation, literature and other sources) and quantitative research – statistical analysis of the outcomes of the project proposals’ evaluation. The thesis has proven both hypotheses. It was confirmed, that significance and validity of the project’s idea is the main set of criteria which influences outcomes of peer evaluation at the programmes administered by the Research Council of Lithuania the most. However, the representativeness of this set of criteria is the lowest one, compared with the other sets, because of the narrow spread of the scores and uneven distribution of values. It was also confirmed, that particular groups of institutions, that specialises in corresponding fields of science, were enjoys success depending on the type of programme, administered by the Research Council of Lithuania. Vilnius University was the only exception which successfully competed in all the programmes, because of its significant financial, human, knowledge and technological resources. Besides, because there were situations, that brought doubts about cohesive operation of evaluation process of some programmes, but it was impossible to prove or to deny those doubts with the data available, problematical spots were highlighted and recommendations for further research. Most questions involved the working of The National Lithuanian studies development programme for 2009-2015 and its dissemination projects particularly. The scores of those proposals, the proportion of successful and unsuccessful applications and statistical characteristics were highly unusual and unbalanced compared with other research projects’ evaluation results, thus it was suggested to perform internal analysis of that programme. The results of this study are relevant for improving both research projects’ proposals evaluation criteria and the process or methodology of competitive research funding. Furthermore, the outcomes could be useful for the science policy makes, in order to determine competitive ability of research institutions and for shaping the principles of competitive research funding. |
