EQUAL - Final report - eng - navreme

EVALUATION OF CIP EQUAL TRANSNATIONAL CO-OPERATION PRINCIPLE
On the contrary, the webs of the organisations implementing the projects have been identified as a
relatively reliable source of information. However, also in this case we meet with the risk consisting in
the fact that the organisations may change their web over time so that the information on the project
already implemented will not be available any more (the team met with this situation in several cases
of foreign projects).
In general, it is possible to state that when carrying out the evaluation, it was difficult to obtain
reliable and up-to-date information on the individual projects and in case, when this information was
obtained, it was not sure whether a source always accessible was concerned.
4.2 Questionnaire survey
The link to the electronic questionnaire was sent to 1,786 e-mail addresses 5 while 69 of them
returned as undelivered (i.e. 1,717 addresses were addressed successfully); 254 received
questionnaires represent the response rate 14.8 %. Of this number, 219 questionnaires
contained a set of questions focused on the representatives of the development partnerships, clients
of the services created within the framework of the EQUAL projects (the target groups of the
projects), members of the National Thematic Networks, independent experts and potential applicants;
the set contained 21 questions. The remaining 35 questionnaires were filled in by the representatives
of MA, NSS, the Payment Authority, the European Commission, the Monitoring Committee and the
politicians and strategy makers in the area of HRD and the ESF; the set contained thirteen questions
in total. None of the questions – with the exception of the inquiry about the country of the origin and
the respondent type with respect to CIP EQUAL – was obligatory. Duplicities were removed from the
obtained set of questionnaires, the questionnaires were deleted, in which less than 20 % of answers
were filled in, and further corrections were carried out, on the basis of which the number of the
answers being analysed reduced further by eight to the resulting 212 questionnaires focused on
particular projects or recipients and 34 questionnaires, which were filled in by the management
structure members, i.e. to 246 in total. A detailed outline of the work with the questionnaires and the
results of the questionnaire investigation are mentioned in Annex 8.3.
The answers from the questionnaires show that the most frequent source of inspiration, assistance
and information for preparation and implementation of the transnational cooperation is the previous
own experience. The experience of the partners from abroad in combination with methodological
instructions of the EC and the assistance of the National Support Structure were mentioned as the
source of inspiration and support. The quality of the particular support provided was high while this
status has not been unchanging, but instead it is indicative of rather positive development of the
relations between NSS and the recipients. To the planning of the project itself a question is related,
what influence the transnational cooperation has on the length of the project, respectively if it
requires higher time investment. The original hypothesis was confirmed that there existed a certain
influence for sure, however, it should not be extreme - the respondents most frequently concurred
that the transnational cooperation extended the project by one fifth of its length. When answering the
question, which stages of the transnational project require more time, the respondents mentioned
most frequently the very stage of preparation and then the overall coordination of the transnational
co-operation. If the respondents of the questionnaire investigation mentioned that the teams
implementing the transnational partnership needed support, than it was above all in the area of
search for partners.
According to the respondents, transfer of experience and practices, organising seminars, conferences
and various other meetings belonged to most frequently implemented activities within the framework
of the transnational cooperation. These findings were combined with the results of the inquiry for
suitability of the individual activities for the transnational cooperation, to be specific, with the answers
to the question: “Which activities are, in your opinion, the most suitable for the transnational
cooperation?” with the selection possibility on the scale from 1 (not at all) to 6 (a lot). It is obvious
5 In total on 302 addresses in CZ and 346 in IT, 134 in DE, 98 in UK, 13 in IE, 98 in PL, 219 in FR, 101
in SK, 43 in AT, 109 in NL, 179 in ES, 90 in PT and other 54 in undistinguished way for the English
version.
Navreme Boheme, s.r.o. 27