Better assessing the impact of EU-funded health research
To achieve its goals, the project EVAL-HEALTH (Developing and testing of new methodologies to monitor and evaluate health related EU-funded interventions in Cooperation Partner Countries) worked with public health research projects funded by the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes (FP5 and FP6, respectively). Nine case studies were conducted in Africa, Latina America and Asia to analyse the methodology's usefulness as well as that of the tools designed for data collection. The IOM helps to identify, record and assess projects, with results and impacts being classified across four dimensions or categories: knowledge production, capacity building and research targeting, policy and decision making, and health and health sector benefits. A scientific paper describing the IOM methodology has been published in the journal Research Evaluation. Related to other project objectives, researchers sought to gain a better understanding of the role of evidence in health policy and strategy development, as well as the perception of evidence by different policy actors. To this end, three specific policies were selected for study in research carried out in India and Nigeria. Results showed two different understandings of evidence among policy actors in both countries, and an analysis revealed that the particular health policies and strategies were perceived to be evidence-informed. Two country reports were prepared, as well as a cross-country analysis. The work offered new insights regarding three main areas. The first is relevant to the different types and key characteristics of evidence informing health policy development in the two countries. The second has to do with the use of different types of evidence in developing health policy in India and Nigeria – including facilitators and constraining factors. The third highlights strengths and weaknesses of current mechanisms and practices of evidence use in the development of health policy. EVAL-HEALTH presented and recommended ways of enhancing the role of evidence in health policy development both within the study countries and beyond. Project outcomes (the IOM methodology) can help to better assess the extent to which EU-funded health research projects produce impacts.
Keywords
Health research, monitoring and evaluation, EU-funded interventions, developing countries, Impact Oriented Monitoring
