A brief history

Founded in 2001, IPDET was implemented at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada until 2016. During these 16 years, more than 3,500 participants from 125 countries participated in the program and built up a strong international community of alumni.

After a one-year break, IPDET moved to the capital of Switzerland, Bern in 2018. Since then, it is implemented in partnership between the Center for Continuing Education at the University of Bern (ZUW), the Center for Evaluation at the Saarland University in Germany (CEval), and the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank (IEG). ZUW and CEval are two key European evaluation hubs, both offering the longest-standing demand-oriented master’s and continuing education programs in evaluation.

The way ahead

Through its decentralization strategy IPDET becomes even more a diverse and global program reaching out to those, who may not have the ability or resources to attend the Bern program. Courses and guidance can better be tailored to the needs of specific audiences in different regions. To foster local evaluation capacity development, IPDET is cooperating with partners in different regions of the world.

Further developments of the IPDET delivery in Bern and the decentralized outreach are in progress and tightly connected to IEG´s Global Evaluation Initiative.