Legal basis of the evaluation process
When the ERNs were established, it was agreed that an evaluation would be conducted every five years after their initial approval (or last evaluation) to determine the worth or significance of the work and actions developed by the ERNs. In 2022/2023, the ERNs and our member HCPs from the 1st call underwent a formal performance evaluation.
The evaluation process is transparent and independent from the policy making, and developed by a third party appointed by the European Commission, an Independent Evaluation Body (IEB), to enhance credibility.
The Consortium consisting of IDOM Consulting, Engineering, Architecture (IDOM) and the Andalusian Agency for Healthcare Quality (ACSA) has been appointed by the EU Commission as the Independent Evaluation Body (IEB) to perform the technical evaluation of the European Reference Networks and their members, under the framework of the Implementing Decision 2014/287/EU which set out the criteria for establishing and evaluating European Reference Networks and their members at least every 5 years.
The evaluation process is part of the AMEQUIS Framework and will include the annual Continuous Monitoring exercise.
Timeline of the evaluation and monitoring data collection
Annual Monitoring data collection
From 2023, the data collection is organised annually. This data collection is based on 18 indicators defined by the European commission and the ERN monitoring Working Group. In 2024, the indicators were enriched and some indicators are directly collected from members HCPs.
Evaluation process
The evaluation process is organized at the end of each grant period (i.e. 5 years)
According to the evaluation manual, the EVALUATION process is implemented in 4 stages:
- Preparatory steps of the evaluation process, that started November 11th, 2022.
- The self-evaluations by the HCP teams and ERN, starting the 19th of December 2022.
- The technical evaluation of HCP and ERN, which will start just after the self- evaluation (early march 2023).
- The evaluation results, from the end of May until the beginning of September 2023.
The evaluation of ERN-EYE first 5 years was succesfully performed on 2022/2023 for the period 2017-2021.