Evaluation and EQUAL

The evaluation of EQUAL was carried out within the framework of the European Social Fund regulation (see the document General framework and evaluating activities) following the guidelines given for all the Structural Funds.

The evaluation of EQUAL was undertaken at three levels:

1. At project level (Development Partnership) level, insofar that they had to set up an evaluation process whose results had to be presented to the national managing authority, itself in charge of the analysis of all the projects self-evaluations.
2. At national level, on the basis of a contract established after a call for tender launched by the managing authority with professional and independent evaluators. The evaluation reports, transmitted to the Commission, followed common specifications included in the national programmes.
3. At European level, on the basis of a contract established after a call for tender launched by the European Commission with professional and independent evaluators, who extracted the essential facts from the national evaluations and carry out their own research on the basis of specific terms of reference.

The intermediary and 'final' evaluations - covering the EQUAL activities between 2001 and early 2006 - were compulsory. The reports requested at national and European level are completed and available on this page.
In February 2006, a Conference on Evaluation in EQUAL, provided an opportunity to share learning between professional evaluators, EQUAL managing authorities and European Commission (See report).