Monitoring of the RIS3 Strategy
Three main purposes of the monitoring system of the RIS3 strategy can be identified:
- monitoring current transition processes and keeping responsible authorities updated on the processes in an adequate manner;
- building and strengthening trust and cooperation between the parties involved in the transition process;
- helping to ensure accountability in policy-making.
The monitoring system serves these purposes through three key roles:
- collecting information and making it available to decision-makers;
- clarifying the purpose and operation of the strategy and making it understandable to the general public;
- supporting constructive stakeholder engagement through transparent communication.
Monitoring of the National RIS3 Strategy complies with the Commission’s requirements on the set-up of the RIS3 monitoring system. The bottom-up set-up of monitoring (projects in the ESIF programmes, departmental programmes and TA CR national programmes) meets the basic requirement on the reliability, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the system in question. It focuses in particular on the use of funds for the interventions implemented, broken down by the strategy’s horizontal and vertical objectives, and on the fulfilment of the indicators of the strategy broken down by its strategic and specific objectives.
To meet the national level requirements, each regional authority must fill out their own regional cards recording R&D&I activities – Annex 2 Cards of regional RIS3 Strategies. The complete monitoring of the regional RIS3 strategies is the responsibility of individual regions. Regional authorities receive methodological support at the national level, and in case of some context indicators, the NUTS 3 level is included. In cooperation with CzechInvest, data are acquired from the mapping of the regional innovation ecosystems.
Context indicators (DATASET 3.1 a (Currently only in CZ)) are used for monitoring the substantive impacts of the vision and strategic objectives of the RIS3 Strategy. Project indicators (DATASET 3.1 b (Currently only in CZ)) are used for monitoring the results and outputs of the RIS3 Strategy.
Monitoring of the RIS3 Strategy has been set up in a way that, in addition to the above substantive indicators, monitoring includes project sets for operational and national support schemes that allow for identification of the sources and scale of financial support in all individual projects with links to the RIS3 Strategy for the following entities:
- specific objectives of the RIS3 Strategy;
- RIS3 Strategy specialisation domains;
- R&D&I strategic topics;
- key enabling technologies (KETs);
- R&D&I topics in social sciences and humanities;
- regional domains of specialisation in support schemes designed to give support to disadvantaged and deprived regions in the Czech Republic.
The annual progress of the RIS3 Strategy is monitored and the outputs/results of the implementation of the RIS3 Strategy are published in RIS3 Execution and Implementation Reports (Currently only in CZ).
Evaluation of the RIS3 Strategy
The government of the Czech Republic has obligated the MIT to conduct evaluations of the National RIS3 Strategy or its constituent parts and individual interventions at least once every two years, no later than by 30 June.
In relation to the National RIS3 Strategy, evaluation means the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the strategy and the degree of progress in fulfilling the objectives set. The global objective of evaluation is to help to effectively target interventions to areas with high potential for change and to subsequently evaluate whether the impacts of the interventions made are sufficient enough to bring about the expected change.
To achieve the global objective, several types of evaluations will be carried out:
- Ex-ante evaluation – made at the beginning of the programming period or during the development of the strategy. Its aim is to help to appropriately target interventions and set transparent rules for implementing the strategy.
- Mid-term evaluation – will be carried out in the middle of the programming period, and it will be a process evaluation. It will focus on evaluating the current progress in accomplishing the objectives and the method of implementation and propose adequate recommendations to aid in the implementation of the strategy in the following years.
- Ex-post evaluation – this is the final evaluation which will focus on evaluating the extent to which the objectives of the strategy have been accomplished.
- Ad-hoc evaluations – these evaluations respond to current needs arising from the implementation of the strategy and concern any topics related to the National RIS3 Strategy.
An Evaluation Plan is prepared and updated every two years, specifying in detail the various evaluations (their purpose, focus, evaluation questions, data collection methods, schedule, etc.). Evaluation activities will focus both on evaluating quantitative data obtained through monitoring and on collecting and evaluating qualitative data obtained mainly through field research. Based on interpreting the data and information obtained, conclusions and recommendations will be formulated to improve the implementation and overall strategic set-up of the National RIS3 Strategy.
