Ex post evaluation of Cohesion policy programmes 2014-2020 financed by the ERDF. Work pack-age 6 – SME support

The Directorate-General Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission launched an ex post evaluation of investments in small and medium enterprise (SME) support by the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) in the period 2014-2020. The evaluation, which started in August 2022 complements the work packages of the ex post evaluation of the period 2014-2020. It took stock of the different types of SME support co-financed by the ERDF in the 2014-2020 period, assessed their rationale and investigated the factors that contributed to their success or failure, measured some years after completion of the interventions. The contract was awarded to a con-sortium consisting of CSIL (Centro Studi Industria Leggera SC) and Prognos AG.

MDI worked as country expert of Finland, Denmark and Sweden in evaluations task 1. In Addition MDI worked as country expert in task 3 case study of Finland. Task 1 included documentary analy-sis, review of national operational programs and interviews. Task 3 consisted of different kind of data collection for a case study in which a theory of change was formed for the policy instrument. Data collection included desk research on programming, implementation and project documents and existing literature, interviews and collection of operations and beneficiaries data.