The final publication of EVAL-INNO highlights the strategic importance of evaluations, which are challenged by increasingly differentiated innovation policy and funding mixes, and are made all the more important by progressively more leveraged national budgets for research, technological development and innovation, as well as the need to develop and evaluate policies which bridge traditional policy fields. This publication presents the tangible evidence of the progress made by the EVAL-INNO project, and also provides insight into the trends of current RTDI evaluation. It stresses the need for similar initiatives in future.

The publication is thematically divided into three parts. In the first part, the reader will be introduced to the topic with an exhaustive comparative study on the contemporary evaluation culture in Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, and Serbia. The second part of the publication presents the main achievements of the EVAL-INNO project, including: the RTDI Evaluation Standards; The EVAL-INNO Evaluation Platform; the capacity-building trainings; the benchmarking of RTDI public research organisations in six different countries of the region, and the pilot programme evaluations in Hungary, Montenegro and Serbia. This part ends with a discussion on the sustainability of the projects results.  The third part of the publication presents some concrete evaluation examples from the SEE region, prepared by international experts, and which highlight practices that can be referenced in the design and implementation of future evaluations.