Within the evaluation of the Austrian ERDF programme 2014-2020 ÖIR has undertaken the coordination of the evaluation, the evaluation of the urban and territorial priority axes, evaluation of horizontal principles including gender mainstreaming and diversity, managing the stakeholder participatory process and setting up the final report.
The Austrian IGJ/ERDF OP is marked by a large degree of heterogeneity in terms of undertaken measures. As such, the contribution analysis is used as an overarching framework to evaluate the impacts of the programme and distil policy recommendations. The contribution analysis is a theory-based approach to impact evaluation which features an empirical revisiting of factors underpinning the logical chains of policy actions. Each priority axis is evaluated individually with tailored qualitative and quantitative approaches. In addition to analysing the impact of the individual specific objectives, the development of short, medium, and long-term policy recommendations is a central output of the project. These aid the implementation and of the ongoing programme by providing inputs which complement monitoring and steering processes, as well as for the adjustment of measures and their impacts in light of the programming of IJG/ERDF 2021-2027.
Programme stakeholders, experts and partners are actively involved in the process via sounding boards. These meet on three occasions during the evaluation of each work package/priority axis and provide feedback on the proposed methodology and (interim) results.
