CEE has a longstanding interest in the development of an evaluation culture within the Irish education system. As a result of this it has been very active in recent years in evaluation capacity building - enabling individuals and organisations to use self-evaluation, action research and evidence-based practice to improve their work. Research conducted within the centre in this area is well known and widely published. For example, it has contributed to the analysis of "Whole School Evaluation" the innovative evaluation procedure recently piloted by the Irish Department of Education and Science, and now being extended to all schools in Ireland. The Centre has been granted research funding under the Socrates/Commenius E.U. network, "The Treasure Within" to develop this work further (2003-2006) and continues to seek other funding to continue this aspect of its work.

Seminars / Conferences
A key element of the capacity building activities of CEE has been the organisation of occasional seminars and conferences for education leaders and other interested professionals (see list of recent attendees) . Keynote speakers at these conferences have included:

• Professor David Nevo, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Professor Peter Timms, Centre for Educational Measurement, Durham
• Professor Helen Simons, University of Southampton

Irish Evaluation Network
CEE is interest in the development of an evaluation culture in Ireland in areas beyond education. There has been a longstanding link between the Centre and the Irish Evaluation Network (IEN) a group which was established to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, seminars and conferences for people involved in evaluation in Ireland. CEE hosted the inaugural conference of the Network in DCU in September 2004.

CEE also has close links with the Centre for Curriculum, Evaluation and Management (CEM) at the University of Durham.