Center for Policy Studies
International Policy Fellowships
Nador utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary (36 1) 327 3863, fax (36 1) 327 3809

MENTOR CRITIQUE FORM

Your thoughtful and honest appraisal will be most helpful. We appreciate your input and will try to implement as many of your ideas as possible. Continue comments on the back if necessary.

Each Fellow works with one mentor who is Soros foundations network-affiliated (usually Open Society Institute and Central European University) and one or two ‘external’ mentor(s) who are experts in the field working outside the Soros foundations network. Mentors should: 1) Work with Fellows to devise a brief policy paper in their field(s) of expertise based on a lengthy research paper written over the course of the fellowship year, 2) Maintain contact with Fellows at least once every six weeks or so by telephone, fax or e-mail to discuss the development of projects, 3) If feasible, meet with Fellows at least once during the fellowship year to discuss the project, 4) Facilitate Fellows’ contact with other relevant experts and participation in appropriate meetings (IPF has discretionary funds to support Fellow attendance at relevant events), 5) Complete brief mid-term and final critique forms supplied by IPF to provide the program with feedback regarding the Fellow’s progress.

Your name, position:  Panu Kontio, Senior Researher, Finnish Environment Institute

Name of Fellow you have assisted: Ms Kaja Peterson

1. What, in your opinion, have you and your Fellow/program/project gained from your cooperation thus far? 
Exchange of information about Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in Finland and Estonia. The discussion has facilitated the understanding on transposing the SEA directive. The fellow has received detailed comments for the article and the policy brief. The programme has facilitated contacts between Finnish Environment Insitute and SEIT-Tallinn.
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2. Do certain areas of this Fellow’s work need improvement? Which areas?

The study familiarized Ms Peterson with two methods of  collecting data for research, survey by questionaires and interviews. Possibly, in future,  the fellow could familiarize herself with a wider set of methodology of policy sciences. 

3. In your opinion, does your Fellow’s project make a significant contribution to the field?
	
YES, The transposition of the SEA directive is very actual at the moment. The  work of the fellow gives a good insight to the possible problems of SEA process, which could be avoided when amending / drafting SEA legislation. 
	
4. Would the project be important to other countries in the CEE/fSU region?
	
YES The CEE countries joining EU as well as other applicant countires face the transposition of SEA directive. The results of the study by  Peterson could help the CEE countries in drafting their legislation.

Quite many NIS countires are  willing to ratify the the so called SEA protocol under the Espoo Conventionon on transboundary impacts. In order to do so, they need to develop a national SEA procedures as well. Here the study might be helping these countries to draft legislation.
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5. Could the proposed policy research make an impact on the policy environment in specific countries or regions? (Policy makers, experts and policy research community)
	
YES In addition to countries mentioned in question 4,  the EU member states are also at the moment in the process of transposing the SEA directive and may benefit from the study. Research community may use the results when conducting similar types of studies in other countries. The reporting on the implementation of the SEA directive by EU member states will be actual in future and the study can be among the back ground documents for that purpose.
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6. Is the timetable for the project realistic?

What comes to the dissemination of the results of the study, it should be done without delay to be usefull for the countries which are transposing the SEA directive / developing national SEA procedures.

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7. Could the project benefit a large number of people?
	
Directly only a handfull of people are working with the plans or programmes subject to SEA.  Larger group of people are eventually participating in the SEA procedures. Plans and porgrammes are often of national importance and influence very large groups of people. If the recommendations of the study are taken into consideration when preparing an efficient and influencial SEA procedure, that will result better plans and programmes and as a secondary effect  a large number of people will benefit.

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8. Does the Fellow show evidence that he/she can think strategically about the relevant project and/or field?
	
YES. Ms Peterson has familiarized herself with Strategic Environmental Assessment and understands the meaning of SEA as a policy instrument. In my opinion her expertize is invaluable for Estonia, when drafting the SEA legislation and later on implementing the procedures

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9. If the Fellow were to re-apply for continued OSI funding for follow-up work associated with the project, would you support continued funding?

YES. Potential subject for a continuation of the study / project could be international comparison of SEA experiences. That kind of activity will be necessary in future when the EU member states have SEA legislation in force and aome experiences of implemented assessments start to accumulate.

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10. Are there other appropriate funders that may support the project?

YES. The funding could be compiled from several EU member state funding institutions, since all member states have interest in collecting and analyzing experiences on implementation of SEA. The EU Comission should have interest on such exorcise also.
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Recommendations for other potential senior contacts for this Fellow:

Additional Comments (Please comment on your Fellow’s work and all aspects of the IPF program using the back of this sheet):

Additional Comments: The mentorship was implemented throug email and personal contacts. These contact were kept throughout the fellowship period..

The intial setting of the research question was discussed and the drafts for the questionaires were commented.

The draft paper (article) was commented through email.

A research seminar was arranged in Finnish Environment Institute to discuss and comment Fellows draft article. Ms Peterson send her article in advance for review of participants of the seminar. The five particiapants were researhers of Finnish Environment Institute. In the seminar Ms Peterson gave a presentation based on her study and the article was discussed and comments given to Ms Peterson.

The final draft of the article and policy brief were reviewed and comments provided.

The detailed comments on the products have been provided directly to Ms Peterson and are not presented here. The comments were mainly about methodological questions of the study, developing the analysis and conclusions.