Measuring benefits of European Territorial Cooperation Programmes – Piloting of Typology

22 February 2011

The Proposal – Why?

• Need to know benefits at the EU level

• Need to assess what is achieved in order to communicate benefits

• Difficulty with indicators across E.T.C. Programmes – Over 50 sub themes identified in regulations– Wide range of projects multi country & multi sectoral– Common system not possible– Difficult to change existing programmes– Too late for new indicators

• Data for communication, capitalisation, monitoring, evaluation needed

Benefits

• A tool to identify common achievements– What are you proud of?– Relevance of your achievement in context of programme

area/topics

• Visibility

• Communication tools– KEEP

• Help the programme– To show its uniqueness– Justify achievement of programme objectives

The Proposal – How does it work?

• Looking outside of indicators, but focusing on project achievements (the most significant effects achieved by the end of the project)

• Reported via one report at project completion stage

• Based on project self assessment

• Simple, easy to use, not take very long to complete

• Online system

Step 1: Type of achievement

• New knowledge or analysis - Studies and analysis where the main purpose is to develop new knowledge (eg feasibility studies, benchmarking, comparitative analysis or surveys)

• New ways of working - Change or significant improvement of working methods, skills, practices, procedures and structures (eg guidelines, strategies, tool kits, new clusters, new legal identities)

• Changes to policy or public behaviour - Amended laws or regulations (eg new standards for construction of buildings)

• Investment or infrastructure - eg road, bridge, cycle route

• Product or Service – eg online service, health care service

• Community integration - Integrating communities on both sides of the border and strengthening personal contacts (eg people to people, cross border cultural festivals)

Step 2: Themes

• Economic development

• Environment

• Quality of life

• Accessibility

Step 3: Value of cooperation What is the added value of the cooperation?

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• Cooperation status – To what extent is the cooperation important for this achievement?

• Benefits of cooperation – Additional effects of cooperation?

• Geographical impact – At what level is the most extensive geographical impact of your achievement?

• Transferability of achievements – Would it be possible to transfer this achievement to other organisations / regions / countries outside current partnership?

Pitfalls

• Projects have difficulty identifying one major achievement

• Projects have difficulty distiguishing between types of achievements

• Projects have difficulty distiguishing between outputs and results

Discussion Questions

• Can you identify one main project achievement?

• Can you explain how cooperation has helped you reach your main project achievement?