Following the Evidence Practice: An Analysis of Evaluation Studies on EU Railway Policy

Abstract

Since the end of the 1990s, scholars have been paying particular attention to the link between evidence and policy because of the rise of evidence-based policy making and better regulation in the European Union political agenda. Documents such as evaluation studies are material traces of professional practice and the knowledge production process. Through the analytical perspective of evaluation practice, this contribution has two purposes. First, it differentiates three modes of evaluation theory and practice. Second, through a systematic content analysis of 52 evaluation studies of EU railway policy, it presents an overview of general patterns in the use of evaluative theories and practice. Besides contributing to the literature of evidence and policy practice, the article provides recommendations for EU evaluation and better regulation guidelines.

Understanding evaluation use from an organisational perspective: A review of the literature and a research agenda

“…Several examples contradicting this representation have been mentioned in Section ‘Empirical observations not fully explained by current frameworks’. In addition, one can find evidence of a dynamic changes of evaluation practice in multi-organisational policy evaluation systems in EU countries (Kupiec et al, 2020), developing countries (Horton, 1999), European Commission Directorates (De Francesco, 2019), government agencies (House et al, 1996; Pattyn, 2014) or NGOs (Love, 1998). These observations indicate that how evaluation is conducted and used may or even is expected to change over time.…”