Structural Policy

The "Structural Policy" working group was founded in Berlin on March 7, 2002. It aims to contribute to the quality development of evaluations in the field of structural policy and to improve the possibilities of utilizing evaluation results.

To this end, the working group will provide a forum for broad discussion of important evaluation topics in the broad field of structural policy, i.e. across disciplinary and institutional boundaries and between politics, administration and science. The subject area of "structural policy" refers to the use of funds by state authorities to address regional or sectoral disparities and structural problems in an economy. This includes, for example, regional policy, rural development, agricultural policy, industrial policy, SME policy, cross-border cooperation, conversion policy and much more. An important focus is European structural policy. There are also points of contact with other DeGEval working groups, such as the working group on the Evaluation of Research, Technology and Innovation Policy as well as Urban and Regional Development.

The central tasks of the working group are

• the promotion of inter-institutional learning through a permanent exchange of experience in different policy fields
• contributing to the development of methods through open discussion of new and proven concepts, as well as their results and experiences
• participation in the development of standards and quality criteria
• improving the flow of information regarding the utilization of evaluation results (e.g. providing an information exchange with relevant materials on evaluation in structural policy, including published and so-called "grey" literature), improving the usability of evaluation reports

The working group is a forum that is open to all persons and institutions involved in evaluation in the field of structural policy (research institutes, consulting firms, freelance evaluators, federal and state ministries, economic development agencies, regional authorities, etc.) as well as other parties involved in and affected by evaluations in this field. It draws its attractiveness from the multidisciplinary nature of the policy fields that belong to structural policy on the one hand, but also from the meeting of evaluators and those involved, affected and commissioning evaluations on the other.

The working group deliberately positions itself at the interface between evaluation clients and evaluators. It is the explicit aim of the working group to communicate the results of its work in "both directions". This includes presentations and attendance at conferences as well as statements on current developments in the legal framework for evaluations (e.g. in the context of the Structural Funds).