Evaluation is the main instrument for an institution such as the FWF, which is required to justify its decisions to many different people: first, to the scientific community, which the FWF was established to support; secondly to the Ministry and to politicians who “commission“ the FWF’s work and make money available; and finally to the public: the taxpayer has the right to learn what is done with the money that ultimately comes from his or her pocket and he or she should also expect to have this information communicated in an understandable way. Since its establishment, the FWF has set benchmarks for Austria in regard to the evaluation and decision-making procedures it employs.Together with ministries and funding institutions and as a member of the Austrian Platform for the Evaluation of Research and Technology ¹ the FWF is actively contributing to promoting the widespread application of these standards in the Austrian system for research support.

The FWF’s approaches to evaluation
The FWF is both the user and the commissioner of evaluation procedures and is itself subject to evaluation.

¹www.fteval.at/