The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation published on 31 August 2011 a call for tenders for a contract to provide an external evaluation of the Research Executive Agency (REA) and the European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA). The two executive agencies have been created to support the implementation of the Specific Programmes “Cooperation”, “Ideas”, “People” and “Capacity” under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities (FP7, 2007-2013).

A set of tasks is requested to be carried out under the contract for each executive agency, namely the preparation of: 

• a synthetic description of changes that have taken place since the creation of the executive agencies and the impact of their activities; 
• a retrospective cost-benefit analysis comparing the assumptions made in the initial CBA and the situation of today (e.g., operational effectiveness and efficiency; implementation flexibility; simplification of procedures; visibility of the EU; know-how retained inside the European Commission; the agency’s financial and technical expertise; exploitation of results obtained); and 
• conclusions, judgments and recommendations for the future based on the evaluation questions specified and in-depth on site interviews with main stakeholders.

The conclusions referring to the evaluation questions should be supported by appropriate indicators, taking into account the specificities of each executive agency. More detailed information about the tender can be found in the Tender Specifications and Letter of Invitation to Tender issued by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation.

European Commission, Directorate General for Research and Innovation