Research and development activities must provide results of practical utility and contribute towards the social and economic development to ensure that the resources allocated are being used effectively and channeled in the appropriate directions.
Therefore, in International Organisation as UNESCO, OECD, European Union, NORDFORSK as well as at National level (Germany, Japan, Netherlands, United States ...) it is becoming more and more important to have a system for eveluating the results of Research and Development programmes.
Actually, the on-going and retrospective assessment ( or in itinere and ex-post evaluation) of Research and Development projects/programmes in order to evaluate the contribution of the results to the economic, social and scientific growth, play an important role in the development of national and international research policies.
The main tools available to track and monitor research and development projects and activities are: PERSONNEL, EXPENDITURES, FACILITIES, BIBLIOMETRICS, TECHNICAL REVIEW and SURVEY.
A wide variety of personnel is needed in the R & D effort: from the Nobel prize-winner to the winner s secretary, from the designer of space experiments to the breeder of laboratory animals. Because of the range of skills and education required, it is essential to classify R & D personnel into categories. For example, all those employed as researchers would have university degrees and that all university graduates working on R & D would be employed as researchers.
R & D is an activity for which there are significant transfer of resources among units, organisations and sectors. It is important for science policy advisors and analysts to know who finances R & D and who performs it. The main disavantage of R & D input series expressed in monetary terms is that they are effected by differences in price levels between countries and over time; then it is recommended the use of purchasing power parities (PPP).
Standardised equipment, library facilities, laboratory space, journal subscriptions and standardised computer time would all be possible measures.
Bibliometrics is the technical name for a range of analytical methods using published materials (books, reports, patents, software, designs, prototype and blueprints) to develop descriptive statistics, multidimensional analyses and graphical representations of the output of science.
Technical or expert review is the most widely used approach in research evalutation around the world. Among countries and among different organisations, technical review varies from very informal assessment process to highly structured retrospective quality control mechanisms.
Traditional survey methods, either on paper, in person or by phone, where a group of participants or stakeholders are asked to provide responses to a set of questions, are often used to assess the benefits or outcomes of research.
According to thies scenario and utilising some standard indicators, at the next 10th Workshop on QUANTSOL 98, experts from a wide spectrum of experimental, theoretical and applied disciplines on quantum solar energy conversion (photovoltaics, photoelectrochemistry, photochemistry, etc.) will have the possibility to provide a valuable input in the programme revision, to form a sound basis for future proposals for an evalutation system and, at the same time, to constitute a stimulus to the general development of evalutation activities within our scientific community.
The final step of the proposed peer review should be a number of pratical recommendations for subsequent researches on Quantum solar Energy Conversion in the next years.

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