Policy Evaluation and Evaluation Research

Abstract

Evaluation in the fi eld of public policy may be defi ned, in very general terms, as an analytical tool and procedure meant to do two things. First, evaluation research, as an analytical tool, involves investigating a policy program to obtain all information pertinent to the assessment of its performance, both process and result; second, evaluation as a phase of the policy cycle more generally refers to the reporting of such information back to the policy-making process (see Wollmann 2003b, 4).