Provision of assistance for the Structural Fund evaluation units

The MEANS programme was implemented by Eureval-C3E. Its general objective was to equip European Commission services with a coherent portfolio of methods to deal efficiently with the evaluation problems that they faced. The MEANS programme drew on existing experience in the form of "state of the art" studies on technical questions and expertise to contribute to the Commission's reflections on strategic questions.
MEANS contributed to enriching the level of savoir-faire through workshops bringing together the best European experts and practitioners. An annual conference provided the opportunity for several hundred specialists and managers to discover innovations from different European countries.
The MEANS programme developed the competencies of practitioners thanks to methodological guides (MEANS Handbooks), and actions aimed at diffusing knowledge (a quarterly Bulletin and training seminars).
The results of this work has been published in a six-volume collection dedicated to the evaluation of socio-economic programmes :
Book 1 : Evaluation design and management
This volume acts as an introduction to the whole collection and enables the reader to know what they can expect and cannot expect from an evaluation at a given time and in a particular context.
Book 2 : Selection and use of indicator for monitoring and evaluation
This volumes shows how indicators can be used to support policy decisions, improve management and measure the overall performance of programmes.
Book 3 : Principal evaluation techniques and tools
The tools presented in this volume are applicable to the evaluation of socio-economic programmes and are taken from relevant disciplines : economics, sociology, management, geography…each one of the 23 tools is described featuring a list of strength and weaknesses for the evaluation of Structural Funds and an example of its application.
Book 4 : Technical solutions for evaluation within a partnership framework
In this volume are described several pilot evaluations implemented within the MEANS programme, during which were designed and tested 4 innovations : impact mapping, cross-impact matrix, score cards and multi-criteria analysis.
Book 5 : Transversal evaluation of impacts on the environment, employment and other intervention priorities.
This volumes provides the elements required for an analysis of those impacts which are not necessarily part of the explicit objectives of all the actions evaluated.
Book 6 : Glossary of concepts and technical terms
This volumes offers the opportunity to have an overview of all the terms used in the first five MEANS volumes, rigorously standardised and defined.

Summary : MEANS is a global programme aimed at improving the quality and utility of evaluations performed within the framework of economic and social cohesion policy. The programme devised a coherent set of methods for addressing a wide range of evaluation problems encountered in the field of Structural Funds interventions. The programme included experts workshops, meta-evaluations, pilot evaluations, international conferences and training seminars. It ended in the publishing of a six-volume collection."