Evaluating the European Commission RTD programmes: Responding to the needs of a changing world

Evaluation has been a legislative requirement for European Commission Research and Technology Development (RTD) programmes since the early 1980's. The changing Science and Technology (S&T) environment and the increased pressure for timely, independent evaluation led to the adoption of the current evaluation scheme which has been in force for the last three years. The new scheme is based on annual monitoring carried out with the assistance of independent experts and a five-year assessment conducted by independent experts. The five-year assessment combines an ex-post evaluation of the previous programme, a mid-term appraisal of the on-going one and recommendations for future orientation(s). The new scheme is a tool for programme management and provides timely and independent feed-back into policy formulation. This paper describes the reasons for the establishment of the new evaluation scheme and discusses recent developments in its implementation.