Monday, June 4, 2012


Comments  Re: Five year performance assessment of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at Washington University in Seattle, USA was established in 2007 (http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/). This was made possible through the combination of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and funding from the State of Washington.

The University of Washington and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have commissioned us to serve as an independent panel for an evaluation of IHME after five  years of operation.  We are asked to provide observations on the institutional performance and accomplishments of IHME and recommendations for the future of IHME.

In addition to the conventional evaluation process, we have decided to invite anyone who has interest in IHME´s work to provide comments. We are particularly interested in your opinion of what IHME has done well, what they have done less well, what they have missed and what they should do differently or better in the future.

We would appreciate it if you could send a short email containing your comments and thoughts on IHME’s performance to any of the two email addresses given below by June 15th 2012. In this email, please indicate your institutional affiliation and qualifications along with your comments. We appreciate any time you are able to give to our evaluation, and respect your opinion whether negative, positive or neutral. Of course, your identity and all information you provide will be held in confidence by the panel and no identifying information will be included in any report generated.

We appreciate any cooperation you are able to give to this evaluation, and look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
Prof. Kenji Shibuya (Lead Evaluator), Tokyo   Email:  shibuyak@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Dr. Flavia Bustreo, Geneva
Prof. Hans Rosling, Stockholm      Email:   hans.rosling@gapminder.org