Evaluation of research and technological development programmes: a tool for policy design

In 1994, the European Commission introduced a new scheme for the evaluation of its multi-annual research and technological development (RTD) programmes. The scheme combines two activities both involving independent experts: for each RTD programme, a continuous monitoring and a five-year assessment. The monitoring provides a major input to the assessment, which itself combines an ex post evaluation of the previous programme, a midterm appraisal of the ongoing one, and recommendations for future orientation. The recent five-year assessment (which resulted in more than 25 reports and involved some 200 European experts) provided input to the preparation of the Fifth RTD Framework Programme of the European Community (1998–2002). The new scheme has shown its ability to provide early feedback from evaluation into policy formulation. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.