To ESF decision-makers: lessons learned and recommendations
How can we facilitate innovation in ESF Programmes?
Sharing of experiences and knowledge by different countries taking part in the Innovation & Mainstreaming CoP has helped us identify management practices in several ESF programmes that have clearly had a positive impact on quality and innovation in the projects and action that they support.
Three factors have made social innovation possible in EQUAL:
- a model that followed the innovation and mainstreaming cycle: needs diagnosis, testing, validation and recognition of the quality of results, and their transfer or dissemination to other contexts, involving rebuilding or adaptation;
- key principles underlying all interventions: innovation, partnership, empowerment and participation of target groups, gender equality, transnational cooperation, involvement of employers, and dissemination of best practice;
- Thematic Networks, where partnerships were able to share ideas and experiences in communities of practice, in an environment of trust and openness that facilitated reflection and analysis, validation of products, and preparations for dissemination.
The EQUAL experience proved that social innovation does not happen by chance.
A culture and context conducive to sharing and learning among the different actors involved, as well as conditions that include specific, sufficient and flexible financial support, are all conditions that need to be available to programme managers before social innovation can be driven forward, implemented and disseminated.
The recommendations described below follow the key stages of the innovation and mainstreaming cycle. Many contain references to practices, mechanisms and tools that may be consulted at http://innovation.esflive.eu/
1 . Define innovation priorities and needs
1.1 Programmes that intend to promote innovation should ensure that the target groups’ needs, and the changes needed to the responses and solutions designed for them, are all accurately identified by means of a comprehensive and shared consultation process involving the different players (government departments, NGOs, social partners, etc.) and active participation of the beneficiaries themselves.
Under the EQUAL Programme in Portugal (focused on developing innovative solutions to combat all types of labour market discrimination), a set of Specifications were put together for each thematic domain that clearly identified the policy priorities and innovation needs that applicant projects should address. These Specifications not only served as a way of securing operators’ commitment to the innovation required, but were enormously helpful to the Development Partnerships when it came to preparing their applications. The Specifications described: the objectives to be achieved, priority activities to be undertaken, recommended implementation methodologies, and sometimes suggestions as to the kind of profile that partners in the Development Partnership should have.
A key part of the French EQUAL Programme identified the projects’ fields of action, detailing the action types for each theme and their innovative, pilot and transnational dimensions.
1.2 Projects applying for pilot and innovative actions should be required to carry out an in-depth needs diagnosis that validates the need for the actions to be undertaken, and in which the beneficiaries actively participate.
Examples needed
2. Orientate, evaluate, and select innovative projects
Adopt regulations, application models, mechanisms and criteria for project evaluation and selection that orientate and foment innovation
2.1. A management approach that focuses on quality rather than merely on financial and administrative aspects
The Programmes’ management structures should be supported by qualified teams that are capable of providing operators with technical advice and guidance on the specific areas of the innovation concerned, and selecting the ones that have greatest innovation potential.
Estonia:The implementing agency should try to diminish the technical work load related to administrative implementation of projects and to increase essential co-operation - at the moment, according to the evaluation of the representatives, LMB and MoSA are more controlling agencies than co-operation partners. Only an intensive co-operation with the implementation agency and organisation would facilitate the implementation of project targets and maximising innovation.
2.2. Application mechanisms and project selection
All support materials provided by the Programme management must promote transparency and stimulate quality, innovation and change. It is essential that application forms are written clearly, contain concrete questions about projects’ pilot activities and the skills of those who will carry them out. These questions should support a rigorous and impartial selection process based on objective and measurable criteria.
The project selection criteria relating to equal opportunities used by the ESF in Ireland are a valuable reference source for Programme managers and technical staff in their endeavours to enforce the EO principle and to generate serious reflection on its application.
The ESF Information System in Portugal is an internet-based platform that enables management of all data relating to ESF projects: online applications, monitoring visits, expenditure declarations, etc.
The platform is accessible to all applicants to ESF funding, once they have registered. As this is an integrated information system, applicants only need to register once, i.e. the first time they apply to any ESF Programme. The System facilitates information transparency and sharing, and allows for monitoring by operators or Partnership partners, thus making them responsible for compliance with funding rules. It simplifies communication, and consolidates quality and innovation in Programme Management.
3. Create continuous learning environments
Developing a culture of openness to sharing and learning is essential in the context of innovative Programmes, as it makes people want to do better, and leads to the benchmarking of practices and innovation.
3.1. Develop operators’ skills
In Portugal, EQUAL management worked with several universities to develop the delivery of a postgraduate course in Partnership Project Management, designed for Development Partnerships and their technical staff.
EQUAL Thematic Networks in several countries provided an opportunity for Development Partnerships to share their experiences, and this had a very constructive impact on their interventions and on the policies.
In Spain, under the framework of the National Thematic Network on Employability, a subgroup comprising Equal projects working on Corporate Social Responsibility was created. Its aim was to identify and promote the inclusion of social clauses in the process of procurement at different levels: National, regional and local administration. Once the projects and the Equal NSS had elaborated a report on how to incorporate social clauses in public procurement, the members of the group started exchanging their experiences on a broader basis about how they managed Social Responsibility and Social inclusion aspects in their territories. As a result of this mutual exchange, organizations working at local level built a Network of Territories Socially Responsible in order to empower local authorities, local NGOs and social partners and to involve them on employment policies. This network is piloted by the Directorate General of Social Economy and Self-employment of the Ministry of Labour and Immigration and it is currently being financed under the ESF Technical Assistance Operational Programme.
Regional and Thematic networks (Communication and Gender) in Belgium Fr were held as part of the Regional networks set up in response to operator’s wish to exchange on a geographical basis and not only on a thematic basis. Operators could share good practices. The networks also allowed benchlearning.
The Communities of Practice set up across Europe within EQUAL, in which several management authorities took part, demonstrated that much can be learned and improved through concerted efforts by managing bodies, and that benchmarking good management practice is vital to achieving a more cohesive and solidary Europe.
In May 2008 MA ESF in Poland had a problem concerning partnership projects in ESF 2007-2013. Partnership is not clearly defined in Polish national legislation and that is why Polish
MA has taken steps to create such definition and prove to Public Procurement Office that partnerships do not collide with public procurement
legislation.
I knew that some countries, i.e. Czech Republic had similar problem in 2004-2006 programming period, so I turned to CoP Partnership members with my dilemma. As a result, thanks to many comments and hints from CoP members we succeeded in creating partnership legal definition in cooperation with Public Procurement Office.
To cut a long story short, according to the new law, which is just being incorporated, aplying ESF funds by partnership projects looks like this:
1. Leading partner signs contract with MA only after signinng partnership agreement.
2. As far as choosing of partners is concerned, when leading partner comes from second or third sector (s)he could select partners freely. However, when leading partner stems from public sector (s)he is obliged to issue a call for tender while selecting partners.
4. In selection proccess features like potential contribution and experience should be taken into consideration.
5. Afterwars, the partnership agreement containing tasks of every partner has to be made public.
Sound Planning Management COP: the MA for Frenchspeaking Belgium could improve its own skills on PCM (blended trainings), its implementation of PCM methodology and the formalization of its practices. The participation to this network offered an answer to its concern to find a way to ensure PCM training on a broader scale (PCM self training online).
4. Test and devise new solutions
Testing and designing new approaches and solutions must be done with the active involvement and participation of the relevant players and partners, and also the beneficiaries of the actions.
The EQUAL principles underlying all the projects had a particular effect on the innovation and design of new solutions. Partnership, empowerment, and gender equality are good examples of this.
4.1. Partnership between organisations that are different in nature but whose aims are complementary gives rise to knowledge-sharing and skills convergence, which provide a fertile ground for collaborative working and holistic approaches to the multiple and diverse problems of the labour market’s most vulnerable and discriminated groups. Working in Partnership has been in the past one major contribution to social innovation.
In Flanders, ESF application forms contain specific questions about stakeholders’ involvement and organisation of partnerships. The entire form-filling methodology causes operators to formulate their approaches to the target groups holistically. This holistic perspective leads, in turn, to the formation of partnerships.
The involvement, active participation, and responsibility-sharing of the project target groups in defining solutions to their own problems were found to be crucial to the conception of more appropriate, effective, and innovative responses.
4.3. The gender equality principle
Incorporating the gender equality perspective throughout the course of the project (whatever the thematic domain may be) gives a fresh dimension to the new solutions being explored.
Practical Gendermainstreaming Fiches : after putting on a disappointing because too theoretical Gender Help desk, the MA for Frenchspeaking Belgium opted for a practical support for integrating gender in the ESF 2007-2013 projects based on PCM inspired fiches following the different project steps.
A Guide on how to incorporate gender equality perspective on Equal projects was elaborated by the Spanish National Support Structure and seven projects of the first round of Equal to help the second round projects with their "on the ground" experience.
Also having an expert on gender equality was compulsory for the second round Equal projects as an attempt to guarantee that the decisions throughout the course of the projects were taken under a gender equality perspective.
To be effective and fully maximised, innovation needs social recognition. Devising and facilitating a model for the validation of new solutions by operators is a vital step towards their recognition and dissemination.
Portugal
developed a very successful model for product validation, which had three primary objectives: to help raise the quality of the new solutions, promote their social recognition, and anticipate strategies and partnerships for their dissemination.The model was supported by a grid containing seven quality criteria (innovation, empowerment, suitability, usefulness, accessibility, equality, and transferability). The product is presented by its authors at a session of their Thematic Network, before being discussed and evaluated in subgroups on the basis of the seven criteria. The product is then rated according to evidence of the criteria found, and recommendations as to how it could be improved are put forward. Using this tool in the context of the Thematic Networks, in which there was a real culture of openness and learning, made an invaluable contribution to improving the quality of products and their public recognition, and paved the way for the validated products’ subsequent dissemination. Further details are available at www.innovation.esfilve.eu.
Francophone Belgium and The Czech Republic adopted the model and adapted it to suit their own contexts.
A validation process, inspired by the Portuguese experience, was set up in Belgium Fr. Through regular meetings and individual coaching, Equal projects prepared a broad mainstreaming of their flagship products. The validation process also allowed a high quality and uniformity level of the products presented at Equal Closure Seminar.
6. Mainstreaming: transfer and dissemination
• The allocation of public resources to developing pilot programmes stems from the logic of subsequent application of their outcomes (innovation) and generalised improvement of common public practice (mainstreaming).
• It is the responsibility of those who use public resources to get the utmost out of innovation produced. Mainstreaming new solutions through wide dissemination, or by influencing policy (vertical mainstreaming), or transferring them to other organisations (horizontal mainstreaming) are models that have already been tested and that must be reproduced.
• Mainstreaming cannot be dissociated from innovation, i.e. from the innovative measures. Mainstreaming must be addressed right from the time of the application to develop new solutions. Who is interested in new solutions? How will the innovation be disseminated once it has been developed and tested? Shouldn’t the final “client” be involved from the design stage? The earlier an innovative project incorporates the mainstreaming principle in its work agenda, and establishes contact with those who might be interested in the product and with decision-makers, the easier it will be to obtain public recognition of its quality and usefulness.
Good examples from France and The Netherlands needed
6.1. Database and demonstration of the innovation
Giving visibility to the experimental results (innovation supply) is fundamental. The innovation should be widely disseminated and made accessible, and emphasis given to ways of sharing and increasing understanding of the new solutions.
[Examples needed: Bank of Ideas Ireland]
6.2. Promoting networks for sharing and disseminating innovation
Networks, even informal ones, of people and organisations interested in sharing and developing innovation are important for ensuring its diffusion and sustainability.
[examples needed]
6.3. Vertical mainstreaming
Generalisation of innovation and its impact on policy require the involvement – at an early stage in the project – of authoritative bodies and policymakers, in order to avoid the “it was not made here” syndrome.
It also calls for projects to be able to put across their message well: they need to be able to convert experimental results into messages that politicians can understand, and to speak the language of decision-makers. To avoid difficulties at this level, decision-makers and authorities (innovation demand) should identify priorities during the experimental activities and be able to follow their progress, with a view to using the results (pull mechanism).
[eg. ESTONIA-gamblers or PORTUGAL – women’s trafficking]
6.4. Horizontal mainstreaming
Innovation transfer between organisations for the purpose of incorporating new solutions or practices is a process that requires the involvement of several players (authors, incorporator organisations, mediators, etc) and also time for the transfer process to become effective and make an impact on the organisations and beneficiaries.
The EQUAL Community Initiative’s Action 3 – the specific time and action devoted to generalising innovation – made more consistent horizontal transfers between organisations possible, with the help of training and awareness-raising activities.
7. Monitor and evaluate innovation
Evaluation should not be seen as merely a formal requirement, and the idea of self-evaluation and monitoring throughout the course of the projects should be present.
Occasions for evaluating innovative projects should be seen as opportunities for participation and collective learning that can reinforce skills, joint reflection, and teamwork dynamics.
Evaluation should be a space and component of innovation that helps drive forward a culture of assessment and joint reflection, stimulates the empowerment of agents in organisations, and underpins the quality of processes and outcomes/products.
In the Czech Republic, the ongoing self-evaluation was obligatory requirement at the level of the EQUAL projects. The specific training o the self- evaluation was provided. It was reflected by many DPs as a useful tool for quality project managment and also for testing innovative solutions themselves.
There was also an ongoing evaluation at the programme level in Czech which provided an important reflection and recommendations regarding implementing of the principles, particularly innovation. Consequently several actions were taken by MA to improve methodological support in different areas as introduction of the validation methodology, gender mainstreaming training seminar, systematic approach in vertical mainstreaming and also in integration EQUAL principles in the new ESF. Thank to the ongoing programme evaluation the dissemination and mainstreaming were more effective as many stakeholders and policymakers were addressed by evaluation findings and recommendations.