Participatory evaluation of community-university collaboration programs: a case study of Noto, Japan

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a case study of a participatory evaluation of community-university collaboration in the Noto region of Japan, comprising capacity development and research programs. By modifying the Most Significant Change (MSC) technique, we designed our own methods using the “Horizontal MSC” technique to address the lack of a mechanism to collect and share the views of those engaged in the program implementation. The study found the Horizontal MSC useful in participatory evaluation, which itself can serve as a learning process for key actors to share future goals and has the potential to enhance overall cycles of planning, implementing, and evaluating programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Satoyama
• satoumi
• most significant change
• capacity development
• community revitalization
• collaborative learning

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Yoshio Hamano, Naoyuki Kaneda, Heiichi Kawabata, Koji Nakamura, Yasunori Nishi, Rahman Shukur, and Hiroaki Sugimori for their participation and valuable comments. Philip Brunton provided insightful support in the editing of the manuscript. We also thank Hiroshi Tanaka for sharing his expertise in participatory evaluation and the MSC technique.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Noto Satoyama Satoumi SDGs Research Program; Noto SDGs Laboratory; JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP15K00673; and Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN: a constituent member of NIHU) Project No. 14200102.