Projects

The project involved a comparative assessment of support structures for attracting EU funding in Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Emilia Romagna (Italy), and Nordrhein Westfalen (Germany). Against a backdrop of declining receipts for Scotland from EU Structural Funds, the question is whether Scotland could better exploit some of the other sources of EU funding, notably: the EU Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP); the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP); the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP); Trans-European Networks (TEN-T and TEN-E); and the Community Initiative, formerly known as Interreg, which in 2007-13 is part of the new Territorial Cooperation Objective.

The project was part of the study 'W.IN.D. - Women In Development', which examined the identification and dissemination of effective ways to promote gender equality in local economic development. EPRC research involved elaborating a case study on Scotland to identify and analyse: (i) practical experiences with strategies to support the participation of women in local development processes, and (ii) practical experiences with strategies to support the introduction of the principle of gender mainstreaming into local development processes.

The project involved research on the operation and impacts of the main Structural Funds programmes (excluding Community Initiatives) in Scotland in the period 1994-2006. The specific objectives were: to assess the overall effects of the 1994-99 and 2000-06 programmes; (b) to provide detailed analyses of a small number of Structural Funds projects; and (c) to identify examples of good practice and value-for-money.

The project comprised the ex ante evaluation of the Northern Periphery Programme (NPP) 2007-2013 for the NPP Managing Authority. Objectives The aim of the ex ante evaluation was to provide an external perspective on the preparation of the new Programme with a view to improving and strengthening the final quality of the Programme and optimising the allocation of resources. The objectives were: to appraise the socio-economic analysis and the relevance of the strategy to the needs identified; to evaluate the rationale of the strategy and its consistency; to appraise the internal and external coherence of the strategy; to evaluate the expected results and impacts; and to appraise the proposed implementation system. The evaluation has been undertaken, as recommended by DG REGIO, through ‘an iterative and interactive process’.

The project involved updating the mid-term evaluation of the Northern Periphery Programme.

The project comprised the Up-Date of the Mid-Term Evaluation of the Interreg IIIB Northern Periphery Programme. The study assessed the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the programme on the basis of experience up to mid-2005 and the implications for the future, in the light of changes in the financial, regulatory and strategic environment with special emphasis on the main conclusions from the 2000-06 programme and lessons for 2007-13.

The project, commissioned by IPI, the Italian agency for industrial promotion (Istituto per la Promozione Industriale), involved research on the innovative types of business aids in selected European regions. The project analysed selected aid schemes from a range of Member States with a view to assisting the development of innovative Italian aid schemes for 2007-13.

The project involved evaluation of the impact and added value of INTERREG IIIB Community Initiative in UK (2000-2006) which was led by EKOS. . The INTERREG IIIB Programmes: Atlantic Area; North Sea Region; and North West Europe were included in the study.

This project involved research contributing to the debate about the reform of Structural Funds and the implications for Scotland. It aimed to improve understanding of how the reform debate was evolving at European level, to assess the likely effects of Scotland losing substantial amounts of European funding after 2006, and to encourage discussion of how Scotland should engage in the international debate.

The project involved preparation of further factsheets, building on earlier work, for the NDP Gender Equality Unit in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on gender mainstreaming in the Irish NDP. The factsheets (on Gender and Research, Gender and Sport and Leisure, Gender and Tourism and Gender and Urban Development) were intended to help policymakers and practitioners apply the principles of gender mainstreaming to their day-to-day work. This was again backed up by training, provided by EPRC