About

Action Details
Memorandum of Understanding - 052/21
Start date - 18/10/2021
End date - 17/10/2025

The Action PROFEEDBACK (PlatfoRm OF policy Evaluation community for improvED EU policies and Better ACKnowledgement) aims to foster the networking of the policy evaluation community at EU-level, raise awareness on the importance of evaluation policy research and improve its impact on policy-making. The Platform, following a bottom-up and open approach, will gather researchers and professionals from various scientific fields and sectors to present and evaluate theories, topics, tools and methods of policy evaluation. Results of the Europe-wide assessment of good practices will provide direct and high-quality inputs for national and EU bodies responsible for policy evaluation.

Policy evaluation is a key tool in understanding, developing and modernising EU policies, thus there is growing demand for EU-wide and high quality evaluation services. The main challenge is that currently there is no bottom-up platform for European researchers and professionals working in policy evaluation. They have limited possibilities to discuss common problems, assess country specific practices and share their knowledge in a mutually beneficial and effective way.

PROFEEDBACK aims to tackle this challenge with an innovative, complex, cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary approach by:

• analysing the theoretical and methodological questions of evaluation policy research putting special focus on Cohesion Policy,
• enriching scientific research of policy evaluation and addressing new challenges,
• harmonizing fragmented approaches to set the research agenda and to get a common understanding,
• contributing to the capacity building of the policy evaluation community,
• involving national and EU policy-makers and the civil society to contribute to evidence-based policymaking,
• framing a Code of Conduct for the policy evaluation community.

Keywords: policy evaluation - evaluation research - evaluation community

Research Coordination Objectives

• Development of a common understanding/definition of the subject matter
• Promoting multidisciplinarity and addressing horizontal topics through the comparison and performance assessment of various methods
• Knowledge exchange through EU-wide coordination
• Input and support to stakeholders (e.g. policymakers)
• Dissemination of research results to the general public or stakeholders

Capacity-building Objectives

• Fostering knowledge exchange and the development of a joint research agenda around a topic of scientific and socio-economic relevance
• Bridging separate fields of science/disciplines to achieve breakthroughs that require an interdisciplinary approach
• Acting as a stakeholder platform or transnational practice community
• Involving specific target groups

Grant Holder Institution

The Grant Holder Institution is HETFA Research Institute (Hungary).

HETFA is an independent think tank in Budapest, Hungary established in 2009 by young economists, political scientists and sociologists sharing theoretical and practical experience in social research, public administration and consultancy. HETFA's goal is to provide useful and evidence-based analyses on policy issues for the decision-makers and the policy expert community to improve the quality of public debates and public decisions. HETFA uses a multidisciplinary approach in its research projects on the following fields: public governance, entrepreneurship and SME policy, better regulation and cutting red tape, employment policy, health & education, local governance, cohesion policy, regional policy, and rural development and development opportunities of lagging regions.

For more information visit the website: www.hetfa.eu