Authors : Dag Kavlie and Eric Sleeckx
Publication date : May 2011

This report on monitoring and evaluation of Competence Research Centres (CRCs) is structured along the following topics and issues.

• The relevance of monitoring and evaluation: Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is important for the CRCs to give the centres feedback to improve performance, for funding agencies, for professional programme management and for reporting to ministries, politicians and general public on programme performance.
• The objectives of monitoring and evaluation: A M&E system should be based in the first place on the goals for the centre programme in question. Indicators for each CRC should allow for a variation in profile of the centres within the programme and during the programme period.
• The monitoring and evaluation methods and processes: The M&E-system should be structured along the chain: Input-Activity-Output-Outcome. The time aspect must be kept in mind. Some centres will lead to important impacts that will not be visible before the end of financing period.

Furthermore, evaluation processes used in practice are discussed and examples are presented. And also indicators used by COMPERA members, collected by a survey, are presented.

Finally, the report presents some concluding remarks on how to organise effective monitoring and evaluation of CRCs and CRC programmes.