As well as identifying good M&E practices, the capitalisation activities aimed to explore why and in what way these could be seen as such. UIA were also to highlight the necessary elements that make M&E successful. Importantly, evaluation rather than monitoring formed the main focus of the research.

During the capitalisation activities, Ecorys reviewed basic documents for 55 projects from UIA’s three calls for proposals. It created a long list of 20 projects for further analysis. After additional desk research, a short list was compiled consisting of 11 projects. Between August and October 2020, representatives of these projects participated in online meetings with Ecorys to discuss the details of their approaches and practical observations from implementation.

Eventually, nine projects were further analysed and described as M&E case studies: Antwerp CURANT; Athens Curing the Limbo; Aveiro Steam City; Barcelona B-MINCOME; Brussels CALICO; Paris OASIS; Rotterdam BRIDGE; Utrecht U-RLP; and Vienna CoRE. Since the projects were in different stages of M&E development and implementation, some started quite recently. The report refers to them collectively as case studies rather than best practices. The case studies also offer clear examples of good practice with respect to different M&E elements.

The report is divided into three main parts: theory; practice; and case studies.

The theoretical section offers a few general observations on evaluating innovation based on academic and grey literature.

The practical section contains cross-cutting lessons learnt while analysing the UIA M&E case studies. The report divides the lessons into four pillars – evaluation governance, evaluation approaches, data collection methods and horizontal issues. Evaluation governance encompasses such elements as people responsible for the evaluation, their roles and relations with other partners; processes that connect people (e.g. co-creation, communication and coordination mechanisms, planning); resources available for evaluation. The next practice is evaluation approaches, this concerns the different available ways for evaluating projects/innovations in cities. One of the approaches that the report provides is a counterfactual approach; this is a hypothetical situation to describe what would have happened if the project has never taken place. This way the evaluator can distinguish if the results are directly related to the intervention area. The third practice is called data collection methods. The report presents a number of insights that can support a meaningful and effective evaluation of an innovative project. The case studies, on which the identified lessons learnt are based, focus on a variety of topics. For example, one of the case studies is Paris Oasis which aims to design and transform local urban areas to help Paris to face 21st century challenges, such as climate adaption. Case studies show what intervention has been placed and how this has been monitored.

In the final section, the report describes the M&E approaches implemented in the selected UIA case studies with particular emphasis on evaluation.

Appropriate evaluation and monitoring approaches are important for the implementation of Circular Systemic Solutions. While case studies concern various fields and areas, cities and regions could nevertheless draw inspiration from the presented practices and consider the described lessons learnt in the context of evaluating projects and initiatives connected to their Circular Systemic Solution.