Cohesion policy is the EU budget’s main investment policy. It targets all regions and cities in the European Union in order to support job creation, business competitiveness, economic growth, sustainable development, and improve citizens’ quality of life. The COVID-19 crisis has shown once more the essential role of cohesion policy in helping Member States and regional authorities to respond quickly and flexibly to the health and economic crisis triggered by the pandemic helping the most affected territories, sectors and population. With its strong focus on performance, accountability and transparency in its investments, cohesion policy is at the forefront of the EU’s green and digital transitions that will shape the process of recovery and the future of Europe over the next decades.
The Conference will provide an opportunity to stress the importance of evidence-based policy in a fast-changing world, in view of the launch of the evaluation of cohesion policy’s 2014-2020 investments over the next year. It will provide a platform for discussing the methods used to assess the role of the policy under the different investment themes. It will also be the occasion to take stock of the evaluations carried out by the Member States and the Commission during the period 2014-2020.
In parallel to the conference, we will display an exhibition of posters on evaluations on cohesion policy programmes, carried out in the Member States, which will provide further opportunities for exchanging good practices and share experiences on methods and findings.
The conference is organised in the Alfandega Porto Congress Centre and will be held in a hybrid format, allowing participants who will not be able to travel to join via an online platform. We invite policymakers from EU Member States, managing authorities, evaluation experts, academics, civil society and other stakeholders from across Europe to join us in Porto for one and a half days of discussion and networking.
The plenary sessions of the conference are moderated by Jennifer Baker.
Thursday, 16 September 2021 |
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Session hours refer to Porto local time (1 hour behind CET) |
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10:00 – 10:30 |
Session 1 – Plenary: Opening |
Languages: EN, PT, SI Opening remarks:
Welcoming addresses:
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10:30 – 11:15 |
Session 2 – Plenary: The value of evaluation for a performance-oriented policy |
Video recording Speeches:
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11:15 - 11:45 |
Coffee break |
11:45 – 13:00 |
Session 3 – Parallel workshops |
Workshop 3A: European Green Deal Evaluation findings in the area of climate and environment
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Workshop 3B: A Europe fit for the digital age Evaluation findings in the area of ICT
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Workshop 3C: An economy that works for people: R&I, SMEs competitiveness Evaluation findings in the area of research and innovation/competitiveness of SMEs
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13:00 - 14:30 |
Lunch |
14:30 – 15:45 |
Session 4 – Plenary: How can evidence-based policy keep up with the fast-changing world? |
Presentation Panel discussion:
Q&A |
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15:45 - 16:15 |
Coffee break |
16:15 – 17:30 |
Session 5 – Parallel workshops |
Workshop 5A: An economy that works for people: the social dimension Evaluation findings in the area of employment, education and social inclusion
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Workshop 5B: Challenges and opportunities of MS evaluations (assessing the territorial dimension, disseminating the lessons learnt, measuring impact) MS territorial evaluation findings
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Workshop 5C: The use of data for evaluation Data sources for evaluation and the links among them
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18:30 – 23:00 |
Social event and networking dinner |
Friday, 17 September 2021 |
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Session hours refer to Porto local time (1 hour behind CET) |
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9:45 – 11:00 |
Session 6 – Plenary: Evaluation: A compass for the transitions |
Languages: EN, FR, PT Panel discussion:
Q&A |
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11:00 - 11:30 |
Coffee break |
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11:30 – 12:15 |
Session 7 – Plenary: Wrap-up and conclusions |
| Presentation Video recording Languages: EN, FR, PT Feedback from workshops - Rapporteurs from the parallel workshops:
Wrap-up and next steps towards 2014-2020 ex post evaluation:
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12:15 |
Closing remarks:
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12:30-14:00 |
Lunch |
The conference hosted the Second Poster Exhibition of evaluations carried out by the Member States on cohesion policy programmes in the recent years. The presented evaluations cover interventions co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund/Cohesion Fund (ERDF/CF), the European Social Fund/Youth Employment Initiative (ESF/YEI) or both. The Second Poster Exhibition includes 34 posters from 13 Member States. Posters from the First Exhibition are available here.
