ARCHIVED – Summative Evaluation of the Metropolis Project Phase II: Knowledge Transfer Activities and Impacts

Appendix D: Federal funding partners interview guide

Interview Guide – Federal Funding Partners

Government Consulting Services (GCS) has been engaged by the Research and Evaluation group at Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to conduct an evaluation of the Metropolis Project. The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the extent to which Metropolis has been successful in transferring research knowledge to government policy-makers.

As part of the evaluation, GCS is conducting interviews with representatives of Metropolis federal funding partners, including members of the Interdepartmental Working Committee (IDC) for Phase II. The goal of the interview is to gain a better understanding the processes in place to ensure the proper transfer of knowledge between the Metropolis Centres and federal government departments, and collect information to assist us in assessing the relevance and usefulness of Metropolis research activities and products in informing policy development. Note that throughout this interview we will refer to Metropolis research activities. These include research papers, magazines such as Our Diverse Cities, Canadian Issues, and Diversity, national and international Conferences, other activities organized by the Centres and the Secretariat, etc.

The following questions will serve as a guide for our interview. Please note that the responses you provide will not be attributed to you in the evaluation report (only aggregate information will be released) or in any documentation provided to the evaluation group at CIC and SSHRC.

Please also note that as this interview is being conducted for an evaluation of Phase II of Metropolis (i.e., between April 2002 and March 2007), for all questions we are interested in your experiences with Metropolis at that time.

1. Please describe your role/involvement with the Metropolis Project (length of time, responsibilities, nature of interactions, your participation in Centres’ meeting or Secretariat IDC, etc.).
2. Overall, what was the primary value of Metropolis to your organization?
   1. How important was Metropolis to your department?
   2. Could it have been improved? If so, how?
3. What were the processes in place during Phase II for identifying and incorporating your policy information needs and priorities into Metropolis activities?
   1. To your knowledge did your department have processes in place (formal or informal) to provide Metropolis (Centres and Secretariat) with key policy research needs?
   2. Did the Centres and the Secretariat have processes in place (formal and informal) to solicit input from your department?
   3. How effective were these processes? What were the strengths/weaknesses?
   4. Would there have been alternative processes that would have, in your view, been more effective? Why?
4. To what extend were Metropolis research activities relevant to federal government policy-makers?
   1. How important was it for your department that the Metropolis Centres conducted macro, comparative and longitudinal studies?
   2. Were the Metropolis Centres putting an appropriate level of effort into conducting these types of studies (e.g. enough / too much)?
5. In your opinion, did your department view as a priority the access and use of research in policy-making?
   1. Did your department allocate time for identifying, reading and incorporating research into policy-making efforts?
   2. Did your department participate in Metropolis activities such as Centres activities, national/international conferences, maintaining it’s webpage on the Metropolis website?
      
      [Probe: If so, to what extend does your department support attendance or participation in these Metropolis activities?]
6. As you may be aware, one of the roles of the Metropolis Project is to identify, fund and disseminate research activities to support policy and program development in the field of immigration and diversity. Do you think that the research generated by Metropolis was being used to inform policy in your department? (e.g., to inform thinking, to implement or refine actual policies or programs, etc.)?
   1. If yes, how? Do you have specific examples of Metropolis products you found to be particularly useful for your organization?
   2. If no, why not?
   3. How could it have been improved?
   4. Are you aware of any specific activities related to policy development (presentations, background documents, briefs, MCs, TB submissions) that were directly or indirectly influenced by Metropolis outputs? If so, please identify.
7. Was policy development within your department informed by research from other sources?
   
   [Probe: What are these other sources?]
   
   1. If so, how would you compare the relevance of Metropolis research activities to those from other sources?
   2. How would you compare the usability (ease of use) of Metropolis research activities to those from other sources?
   3. How would you compare the usefulness of Metropolis research activities to those from other sources?
8. Is there anything else you would like to add?

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