📣 7th Edition of the International School for Advanced Training

“Impact Evaluation of Development Policies: Concepts, Methods, Applications”

June 23rd – July 4th, 2025

Several STARGATE members participated in the 7th edition of the International School for Advanced Training on Impact Evaluation of Development Policies: Concepts, Methods, Applications, organized by the Italian Centre for International Development (ICID) in collaboration with the Rossi-Doria Center.

Augusto Cerqua and Marco Letta contributed both as Faculty members and as part of the 2025 teaching staff. Their involvement enriched the program, which is designed to provide government officials, NGO practitioners, private professionals, researchers, and doctoral students with advanced skills in evaluating development policies and programs.

The School offered a comprehensive curriculum combining lectures, case studies, and practical exercises to equip participants with the methodologies necessary for rigorous impact evaluations, promoting evidence-based approaches in development policy.

For further details on the School’s objectives and structure, visit the ICID website.

📣 7th Edition of the School for Advanced Training

“Evaluation of the Impact of Public Policies: Concepts, Methods and Applications”

June 16–20, 2025 | Rome, Italy

Several STARGATE members took part in the 7th edition of the advanced training school “Evaluation of the Impact of Public Policies: Concepts, Methods and Applications”, held in person from June 16 to 20, 2025, at the School of Economics and Business Studies, Roma Tre University. The School is organized annually by the Rossi-Doria Center in collaboration with the PhD School in Social and Economic Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome. Augusto Cerqua, Mara Giua and Guido Pellegrini were part of the Organizing Committee. Augusto Cerqua and Guido Pellegrini contributed to the teaching team.

The 2025 edition brought together more than 30 researchers, PhDs, doctoral students, private professionals, and public officials with a shared interest in public policy evaluation—particularly industrial and territorial policies. The training aimed to develop professional profiles capable of assessing policy impact comprehensively, by linking evaluation techniques with the specific institutional, social, and economic contexts of the policies being examined.

Further information is available on the Rossi-Doria Center’s website.

📣 Paper Presentation and JRC.REMO Award

RSA Annual Conference 2025 – Porto

STARGATE paper receives JRC.REMO Award and presented at the RSA Annual Conference

6–9 May 2025 | University of Porto

Giulia Valeria Sonzogno presented the STARGATE paper titled “Enhancing Implementation Success in Cohesion Policy and Next Generation EU: A Machine Learning Approach” co-authored with Mara Giua and Francesca Micocci (STARGATE Team at Roma Tre University) at the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Annual Conference 2025 in Porto.

The paper explores how to improve the implementation success of major EU investment programmes—Cohesion Policy and Next Generation EU (NGEU)—by identifying factors that influence project success in terms of outcomes and delays. Using advanced machine learning algorithms and granular data on over 600,000 projects financed during the 2014–2020 programming period in Italy, the research offers predictive insights and policy-oriented guidance for more effective allocation, governance, and monitoring of EU resources. The analysis highlights the role of project-specific and territorial characteristics in shaping implementation performance.

The work received the prestigious JRC.REMO Award, granted by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, in collaboration with the RSA Research Network on Cohesion Policy (CPnet). As part of the award, the research will also be presented at the JRC headquarters in Seville, in a session dedicated to supporting policy design and implementation at the EU level.

The authors thank the session chairs and network organizers—Ida Musiałkowska, Andrea Conte, Anabela Santos, Francesco Molica, and Ugo Fratesi—for their engagement and support in fostering high-level dialogue between academia and policy institutions.

📣 Paper Release 

New Working Paper: Governance and the implementation of the EU Cohesion Policy

February 2025

How does governance impact the effectiveness of EU Cohesion Policy? A new working paper by Viviana Celli, Riccardo Crescenzi, Guido de Blasio, and Mara Giua, published in the Geography and Environment Discussion Paper Series at the London School of Economics and Political Science, sheds light on this crucial question.

The study leverages a quasi-natural experiment in Italy, where certain projects were reassigned from EU to national management, providing a unique opportunity to assess the role of governance structures in financial execution. Using an advanced difference-in-differences approach, the authors find that projects managed under EU governance outperform those shifted to national control, particularly at the sub-national level. Within just ten months, financial execution slows significantly under national management, with delays reaching nearly 20% after two years.

These findings offer important insights for policymakers, emphasizing the risks associated with fragmented governance structures and the potential benefits of centralized coordination in managing public investments. The paper contributes to broader debates on multi-level governance and policy effectiveness, providing empirical evidence on the implementation challenges of EU-funded projects.

🔎 Read the full working paper: [LSE Geography and Environment Discussion Paper Series – Paper No. 50]