Institutional and policy arrangements for evaluation of the European Union structural funds in Lithuania

The aim of this article is to assess critically institutional and policy arrangements for evaluation within Lithuanian public administration in order to manage the support of the European Structural Funds and the use of evaluation requirements of EU structural funds as a limited cased study. What has been changed in the administrative arrangements of EU Structural funds support during the two programming periods 2004-2006 and 2007-2013? A key research question is to assess administrative arrangements for evaluation within Lithuanian public administration in order to manage the support of the European Structural Funds and use of evaluation requirements of the EU structural funds as a limited case study to map how these arrangements are or are not developed, and isolating the key explanatory factors. Methodologically, we used semi-structured qualitative interviews and quantitative online surveys of officials, academics and evaluators. The research results show that isomorphism and donor-oriented evaluation dominates in the evaluation system of the EU Structural and Cohesion funds. Lithuania transfers the elements necessary for support evaluation to the public administration systems. From the intervention approach, supporting many programmes and projects, there is a change to the approach based on long-term planning, programming and consulting with the stakeholders. The current paper covers three significant topics (a) the evaluation of the EU Structural support to Lithuania; (b) the institutional and policy arrangements for evaluation within Lithuanian national government; (c) evaluation capacity for public policy evaluation within Lithuania. The research itself contributes to the spread of evaluation theory and practice in the new EU member states. State officials will be able to learn and compare the implementation of evaluation in other member states, what aims were reached, what the scope and significance of evaluation is dependent on evaluation coordination and system centralization-decentralization and what the influence of cultural aspects on evaluation implementation is. The evaluation community could learn about the differences of evaluation systems, possibilities and restrictions, the applied evaluation methods and means of evaluation quality management in order to work in a certain market.