The external evaluations are performed to make sure that the project is carried out according to plan and to provide advice to improve the quality of the project realization. The overall evaluation will be done in accordance with the LOGICAL FRAMEWORK MATRIX of the project.
The chosen external evaluator is the University of Bergamo (Italy). The University of Bergamo will carry out the following three main activities:
- Mid-term and final virtual evaluation: An evaluation of the project’s aims and results is going to be undertaken as part of the Steering Committee project meeting in 2018 and the pre-final SC project meeting. These sessions have the aim to present and discuss the state of each work-package. They enabled the project partners to explore the extent to which they had achieved the original aims and goals, how activities had been implemented, identification of Good Practice, the wider value generated by their activities and lessons learned. The external evaluator will take part as auditor, via Skype or other online devices.
- Individual survey on each WP: An online survey questionnaire will be developed (see Annex 1) and distributed to all partners every six months. Partners will be asked to fill this in individually and return it to the external evaluator. The survey instrument has the aim to understand the overall implementation of each WP and to identify possible problems related to the project realization. This data will be used by the external evaluator to identify possible problems and to suggest possible corrective actions to the consortium related to the project implementation.
- Offline evaluation activities: for each WP, the external evaluator will spend time studying the written project outputs and reports including the project proposal, interim report, deliverables, internal evaluation reports and internal quality control reports. The main scope of this activity is to evaluate the efficiency (are the activities in work-packages done on time in line with the proposed project Working Plan) and the effectiveness (how well are project specific objectives met) of the project.
As results of the previous activities performed, two external quality evaluation reports will be delivered by the external quality evaluator at the middle and six months before the end of the project funded period. The external quality evaluation reports will include the results of the above mentioned three activities and will focus on providing information on the overall status of the project and recommendations to the consortium for improvement of efficiency and effectiveness of the project implementation.
The external evaluator is going to virtually present and discuss the evaluations done to the coordination team and the whole consortium.