The final evaluation completed: “BONUS has been in many ways a great success”
At the time of the evaluation, BONUS had reached its mid-point of implementing the BONUS Art 185 programme; and in October 2017, at the time of the release of the evaluation, the total of projects funded by BONUS Art 185 had amounted to 40, of which the 13 innovation projects had been completed while the rest are still being implemented. A further few synthesis projects will be funded from the final call opened in 2017 with a view that the last project funded in BONUS Art 185 completes its implementation by September 2020. Several highlights “Our overriding conclusion is that BONUS has been in many ways a great success“ On relevance “BONUS was and remains a relevant response to the environmental and policy issues identified in the Baltic Sea region and to the difficulty of joint programming from the national level.” On effectiveness “Without exception, everyone we interviewed was full of praise for the effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and honesty of the administration by the BONUS EEIG in the context of the requirements of an Article 185 programme. It is well managed and operates orderly monitoring arrangements that allow it to report in a clear way to its principals.” On efficiency “BONUS has been very efficient. Its SRA [Strategic Research Agenda] was well constructed on the basis of wide consultation and has been updated. “ On EU added value “We have explored the EU Added Value of BONUS under various dimensions. BONUS contributes to all…” On coherence “We have conducted extensive analysis into its thematic coherence and found that BONUS coheres well with other aspects of EU policy. Correspondingly, BONUS respects the subsidiarity principle: it is not something the participating states could do on their own. It adds advantages of scale, combines complementary national efforts, extends cross-border policy and scientific and policy communities, encourages the use of common standards, coordinates research efforts contributing to the implementation of EU policy, addresses key societal challenges, helps structure part of the European research community and research agenda and plays a small role in scientific diplomacy.” Challenges to overcome The evaluation expert group also pointed out a number of challenges in its findings that have been outlined also in a BONUS briefing issued in early November on the conclusions of the final evaluation, and including BONUS responses to these challenges expressed. All excerpts above are direct quotes from the "Joint Baltic Sea Research and Development Programme BONUS, Final evaluation Report of the Expert Group, Written by the Expert Group, June – 2017, European Commission, October 2017" For the full BONUS briefing issued on the conclusions of the final evaluation, visit www.bonusportal.org/evaluation2017. To read the full final evaluation report, visit http://ec.europa.eu/research/evaluations/index_en.cfm?pg=h2020evaluation(opens in new window)
Keywords
Countries
Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Sweden