METRONOME A Methodology for Evaluation of Project Impacts in the Field of Transport More than 800 transport research projects have been financed in the recent Framework Programmes of the European Commission. In order to evaluate the contribution of these projects to the current key themes of the European Policies: Industrial Competitiveness, Sustainable Development, and Improving Community and Public Policies, the Commission has launched the METRONOME project.
Anu Tuominen, VTT, Finland
T
ransport research under the European Research and Technological Development Framework Pro-grammes (FPs) aims to produce new knowledge and innovation for different stakeholders within the transport sector, thereby helping them contribute to the achievement of the goals and objectives of the European Policy Statements regarding e.g. sustainability issues, European competitiveness, European governance practices and the European research area. A lot of transport-related research knowledge on sustainability and competitiveness of the transport system has been produced in recent FPs. Policy support projects have also aimed to contribute to improving community and public policies. Currently, however, there is no systematic methodology for evaluating the achievements of the research projects towards often very broad policy goals or even research programme objectives. Further, there is the question of how to use the project results in defining future objectives for EU-funded transport research. The METRONOME project, as part of
26 | NORDIC NO. 3 2008
FP7, will contribute to solving the above dilemma by devel-oping a methodology for evaluation of European Commission RTD Framework Programmes (FP) 5 and 6 transport projects, from the perspectives of industrial competitiveness, sustainability concerns and uptake of research results in European policy developments. The project is set to continue until July 2009, but a preliminary screening, selection and evaluation framework has been
developed with the following three phases (Figure 1): 1. Identification of European transport research and policy objectives for the three thematic fields of the METRONOME project 2. Project screening and selection 3. Project impact evaluation In the first phase, European transport research and policy objectives for Industrial Competitiveness, Sustainable
www.nordicroads.com