The mid-term evaluation of the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Austria cooperation programmes addressed a broad range of evaluation questions related to impacts, efficiency, effectiveness and coherence. The research framework was designed in consideration of the structure of such cooperation programmes with small financial sizes in comparison to other funding programmes and national measures as well as their focus on non-investive measures.
Quantitative analyses in particular related to the efficiency of the programme and the internal management processes were complemented by a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the Monitoring Committee, the beneficiaries as well as the unsuccessful applicants. The low overall number enabled the project team to contact representatives of all programmes in the course of the evaluation.
A comparison to the 2007-2013 funding period as well as to data on other Interreg programmes allowed the project team to determine the efficiency of selection processes as well as the administrative effort necessary for project applicants and beneficiaries. The focus of the investigations was laid on beneficiaries involved in multiple INTERREG programmes (e.g. Austria-Czech Republic or Austria-Hungary) which can provide comparative information.
The individual steps of the evaluation were finally triangulated in order to develop conclusions and recommendations. They were discussed and validated with the programme authorities as well and resulted in a final report providing recommendations for the current programme as well as for the 2021-2027 programming period.
