EQUAL - Final report - eng - navreme

EVALUATION OF CIP EQUAL TRANSNATIONAL CO-OPERATION PRINCIPLE
of the outputs of the projects, relates not only to its strategy, but also to the fact what mandate,
mission and possibilities the managing authority has; thus the human, organisational and financial
capacities for proper functioning of such system must exist. The capacities of MA may be
strengthened either through an external agency or by strengthening the managing authority's internal
capacities.
5. Findings according to the selected topics
In this chapter, we mention the findings according to the topics that we have identified as the central
ones. De facto, these topics copy the management cycle of the projects, thus they are not formulated
according to the tender documentation, but they come out from this assignment at the same time.
The outline of the evaluation themes according to the original assignment is mentioned only in the
following chapter.
5.1 Preparation of the transnational cooperation
In the countries that were included in the evaluation, various measures concerning facilitation of the
process of formation of the transnational partnerships were recommended and somewhere also
implemented. For example creation of a special measure or a project at the programme management
level (not at the project level) was concerned. Or it was a recommendation of minimum extent of the
partnership, a recommendation which countries to focus on when searching for partners (further to
the national strategies) or which activities shall be strengthened (it is generally recommended to limit
generic activities that miss particular content); somewhere this principle was transposed into
formation of a particular physical institution, the mission of which is to support the transnational
partnership in the projects in the given programme. This fact was not reflected in the transnational
cooperation preparation stage from the Czech part and the Czech partners were not prepared for it,
somewhere they could have got in disadvantageous or unequal position in some other way during
formation of the partnership.
The transnational cooperation preparation should have proceeded in several phases but this did not
always succeed due to the time pressure. Within the framework of the evaluation it has proved that
the role of DPA was often underestimated, sometimes even the precise TCA was prepared right away
(DPA used completely same formulations in the passages on partnership). Even in cases where the
approach to the transnational partnership was more or less formal and remained limited to several
partial tools (for example to working groups), this approach has changed within the framework of the
implementation thanks to the dynamics it was bringing. At the same time it has shown up that a
whole number of “types” of partnerships exists associated with the partners’ expectations. Where
these expectations had not been clarified mutually well, the cooperation remained more or less
formal, for the substantial modifications were not then attainable realistically within the framework of
the project already in progress (mutual agreement and then the approval process by more national
managing authorities). Various types of expected cooperation may be identified according to the basic
theses and expectations formulated at the preparation of DPA, further according to the selected tools
of the transnational cooperation and also according to the way how the local partners are engaged in
the transnational cooperation.
Czech organisations acceded, as a rule, during the search for partners to the groups that had already
been forming and in the first stage of the project implementation they behaved, with some
exceptions, relatively passively. A reflection of the type “we have had a lucky hand in selection of the
partners” often appears. Thus it may be assumed that if they were in a different situation (selection of
the partners was not too lucky), they rather did not talk about problematic aspects of the
transnational cooperation at all.
As regards engagement of the local partners in the transnational cooperation, both models were used
within the framework of the partnership preparation. Close interconnection of the project topic with
the transnational cooperation may be evaluated positively, too, as the case may be both forms of the
transnational cooperation may have their positives, whether on the one a project implemented with
national partners, in which the transnational cooperation plays one specific role, or on the other hand
a project, which is with its own core and in its focus transnational, is concerned. However, within the
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