IMPROVE project is getting ready for the 1st Peer Review meeting in France!
As the first semester (6 months) of preparations just ended in January, the project is gearing up to start the interregional learning and sharing of experiences stage. The project has chosen Peer Reviews as the learning methodology to be used, and more specifically the OECD Tool for Co-operation and Change. It is: “Systematic examination and assessment of the performance of a region by other regions, with the ultimate goal of helping the reviewed region improve its policy making, adopt best practices, and comply with established standards and principles.”
As a basis for the Peer Review meetings held in the regions each project partner conducts a State of the Art Analysis on their chosen Structural Funds Programme (policy instrument) to be improved in the project. The objective of the State of the Art report is to clarify the current situation in terms of management and implementation of the policy instrument. In short:
- How are the operations designed and implemented (by whom, how they relate with the Managing Authority, etc.)
- How does the governance works (is it structured or not, who takes part and how, how is the coordination between other policies/instruments/funds)
- How are those operations (and the instrument itself) being evaluated?
The regional State of the Art reports are meant to help the partnership (and the regional stakeholders) to better work on the improvement of the selected policy instruments and guide the future activities thanks to the identification of the main challenges in each region.
At the Peer Review meetings the exercises conducted aim to:
- Collect strategic information for a better understanding of the host regions policy instrument and its implementation
- Discover good practices that can be transferable to other regions.
- To provide insight by identifying the opportunities for improvement in every region.
- To create interactive environment with stakeholders
The project partners will take part in the interregional peer review meetings with key stakeholders from their regions. The Peer Reviews will follow a certain pattern:
- Presentation of the policy instrument of the region.
- Presentation of some stakeholders’ visions about policy instrument implementation in the region, proposals, etc.
- Discussion with stakeholders and partner regions on the critical points (challenges) selected by the assessed region and on the relevant questions or issues identified by partner regions.
The first of the 8 Peer Reviews will be held in March 10-11 in Orleans, France hosted by DEV’UP Centre-Val de Loire. The emphasis at the Centre-Val de Loire meeting is on the implementation of the Centre-Val de Loire RIS3 in link with the Thematic Objective 1 of the ERDF Operational programme. Draft of the meeting agenda may be viewed HERE.
To see the schedule of future project events beyond the France meeting and to get a quick glance on the project itself have look at the recently published IMPROVE leaflet.
