Synthesising the findings and writing the report

The evaluation report should address the interests of both the direct audience (P2P members, policy-makers, funders) as well as the indirect audience of the evaluation (researchers, industry, society etc.).

Writing a Report for Policy Makers

The main issues that affect the degree to which evaluations provide usefulness and utility to policy makers primarily concern the information sought by the evaluation.

They value information on

  • effectiveness of design,
  • effectiveness of management,
  • effectiveness of implementation,
  • effectiveness of the evaluation itself,
  • the achievement of objectives,
  • the broader impacts of the Instrument.

However, this set of issues is particularly relevant to evaluations of policy interventions that have typically, been commissioned by those directly concerned with sponsoring or implementing the policy and thus have a narrow set of concerned stakeholders.

Writing a Report for R&I Partnership Stakeholders

In the case of R&I Partnership, the set of stakeholders will be much broader and, at a minimum will include

  • national funding agencies and ministries,
  • the European Commission and other EU or international bodies,
  • research institutions and higher education institutes,
  • user communities (industry, SMEs, civil society, NGOs, etc.),
  • the broader public,
  • observer bodies and other interested parties.

Each stakeholder group will have specific interests and needs concerning the outcome of any evaluation.

Funding agencies may wish to learn about the efficiency of the policy intervention to ensure that tax payers’ money is being used optimally, whilst higher level policy makers will be interested in the networking effects and the extent to which other countries’ agencies have become involved. Researchers will be interested in particular contributions to their research field, while the European Commission will wish to assess the overall contribution of the policy intervention towards its own set of objectives. This varied set of stakeholder concerns will probably necessitate some tailoring of the evaluation outputs to the different needs of the evaluation audiences.