Sandra Speer (GERMANY/HUNGARY) is working as an independent evaluator. The focus of her work is on national and international evaluation and research for public agencies like the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security as well as evaluations in the fields of vocational education and training, labour market and social policy. Her specialization is in evaluation methodology, the relationship of different preordinate and emergent evaluation models.

Dr. Markus Spinatsch is currently a consultant for Public Policy and Administration in Bern. He is consulting national and international policy decision makers in questions of task assessment, strategy, organization and evaluation of public policies. He was formerly Head of Parliamentary Administration Control in Bern. In this function, he directed evaluations of public policies and programs on behalf of the Swiss Parliament and he was consulting the Parliamentary Oversight Committees in their task of supervision over the Government and his administration. He is a social scientist with a Ph. D. in sociology. Before assisting the Swiss Parliament, he was for many years research director in a Swiss non-governmental organization dealing with fundamental and applied research in the fields of health promotion, substance abuse and dependencies. He also worked as a social science advisor for the Swiss Development Corporation in Bangladesh and he conducted a number of research projects in the field of international development.

Nicoletta Stame teaches Social Policy at the University "La Sapienza", Rome. She was a co-founder and the first president of the Italian Evaluation Association. She is the past President of the European Evaluation Society for 2004-05. Nicoletta is interested in the theory and methods of evaluation. She is the author of "Strategie familiari e teorie dell'azione sociale" (Milan, 1990), "L'esperienza della valutazione" (Rome, 1998) and of many essays in volumes and journals and editor of "Classici della valutazione" (Milan, 2006). Her professional background includes researches on socio-economic development, industrial policies, family business and political participation. She has evaluated programs of enterprise creation, aid to SMEs, social integration. Her work aims at enhancing the evaluation capacities of public administrators, program implementers and beneficiaries.

Jacques Toulemonde, is partner and co-founder of Eureval - Centre for European Evaluation Expertise, and managing director of the Master of Public Policy Evaluation in Lyon University. Under contract with the European Commission, he co-ordinated several programmes on evaluation methodology in the field of socio-economic development (MEANS) and development aid (EuropeAid). He works as a leader of evaluation teams and as an adviser for public organisations in many countries. He is the author and editor of articles and books dealing with quality and professionalism in the field of evaluation, evaluation techniques and causality analysis, performance measurement and evaluation in partnership

Jos Vaessen is lecturer at the University of Maastricht (since 2008) and researcher at the Institute of Development Policy and Management of the University of Antwerp (since 1998). His teaching activities at the University of Antwerp and Maastricht University are primarily on research and evaluation methods. He has been involved in research and evaluation activities in the fields of poverty alleviation and rural development, mostly in Central America. Part of this work has been external advisory work for such institutions as the EU, ILO, GEF and others. He publishes on (impact) evaluation in the context of development interventions.

Dr. Peter van der Knaap is director of policy evaluation at the Netherlands Court of Audit and board member of the Netherlands Evaluation Society VIDE. His main research interests are theory-based, policy oriented learning, evaluation utilisation, and performance oriented budgetting. Prior to this work at the Court of Audit, Van der Knaap was responsible for national policy evaluation at the Ministry of Finance. In 1997 he earned his PhD on "Learning government, intelligent policies", a study into the effects of policy evaluation and recommendations on the EU structural funds regulations.

Peter has diverse work experience in Australia, England, Malaysia and Canada including roles as an engineer, Research Fellow, consultant and over twenty years as a public sector manager. He is currently Assistant Auditor General Performance Review for the Auditor General of Western Australia with responsibility for the conduct and reporting of examinations of the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector agencies. He also holds the positions of Adjunct Professor in the School of Accounting and The John Curtin Institute of Public Policy at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia, and Associate of the, Public Sector Governance and Accountability Research Centre at La Trobe University, Victoria.
He has extensive practical and research experience regarding accountability, public sector performance reporting, and assessing and improving the performance of national and State audit offices. He liases regularly with audit offices in Australasia, North America and Europe and has contributed to national and international initiatives. He has conducted and initiated research and presented papers, lectures and courses on public sector management, accountability and audit.

Eduardo Zapico previously worked as a researcher on public expenditure management in the Institute of Fiscal Studies, in Madrid. He also collaborates as a part time associate professor on public management and budgeting in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid.
He has worked in the National Audit Office of Spanish central Government, in the fields of public expenditure control and program evaluation. Before he was in the OECD/SIGMA department doing research and consultancy for Central and Eastern European countries on Budgeting and Resource Allocation.. Previous

Dr. Rudi Turksema is a Performance Audit Expert at the Netherlands Court of Audit. His work focusses on the quality and effectiveness of performance audits. This also involves the quality of performance information, evaluation studies, and results-based budgeting. Before coming to the Netherlands Court of Audit, he received his PhD in Sociology (on a study into the effect of government policy on day-care supply) from Utrecht University, The Netherlands.