Authors of material

	Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos
	GESPLAN

José María Díaz Puente Associated Professor of Rural Development & Evaluation at the Technical University of Madrid

José M. Díaz Puente received his undergraduate degree in Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid in 1998. That year he joined the Program for Research Training of the Madrid Region, and completed his education and research training in the Technical University of Madrid (Projects and Rural Planning Department), UC Berkeley (Institute of Urban and Regional Development), and Stanford University (Policy Analysis and Evaluation Unit). His line of research is focused on participatory methodologies for planning, evaluation and management of public policies, programs and projects, specially, with regard to rural and socioeconomic development. In 2003 he received his graduate degree at the Technical University of Madrid and won the Europe Award for the contributions of his thesis to the development and evaluation of the European policies. During the period 2005-2007 he enjoyed a Fulbright Scholarship to work at Stanford University and do research on evaluation topics. He has presented more than thirty papers in scientific national and international conferences; he has organized conferences with international experts on evaluation and planning of public policies in Europe and USA; he has been invited to lecture in universities such as Harvard or Stanford, in Government institutions in countries like Spain, México or Poland, or in professional associations such as the American Evaluation Association. He is the author of scientific publication in international journals like Community Development Journal, American Journal of Evaluation, Evaluation Review, European Planning Studies, Agrociencia, o Estudios Geográficos.

He has carried out many teaching activities in the University of Antonio de Nebrija, and the Technical University of Madrid in Spain; Stanford University in USA; and Colegio de Postgraduados in México. At present he is professor of undergraduate and graduate courses in the Technical University of Madrid (in topics related to planning, management and evaluation of development programs), and he is professor in the international Master Degree Program on Rural Development of the Erasmus Mundus Programme of the European Commission. In this Master he gives a 30 hours course (in Spanish or English) for the professional training in the evaluation of development programs and projects. It is a very practical oriented course and enables the students to acquire hands-on experience in the design of their own evaluations and in the use of more than 60 evaluation tools.

He has been certified as a Project Management Director by IPMA (International Project Management Association) and has cooperated with governments, universities and firms in the framework of planning and evaluation of different public policies at the regional, national, European and international level. He has led the design of many socioeconomic programs at the local, regional and national level, as well as many evaluations at international and European level in the framework of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the European Commission. He has been adviser of the regional government of Madrid and the national government of Mexico in planning and evaluating regional and rural development. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, reviewer of the American Journal of Evaluation and European Planning Studies; and member of the Research Group GESPLAN, the Spanish Evaluation Society, the Spanish Association of Project Engineering, the American Evaluation Association, and the European Evaluation Society.

Contact information:

José M. Díaz Puente; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos, Departamento de Proyectos y Planificación Rural, Avenida de la Complutense s/n, Madrid 28040, Spain; e-mail: jm.diazpuente@upm.es; phone number: (+34) 91 336 3986; web: https://ruraldevelopment.es/index.php/es/