Final Evaluation of CEMET (WWV & EW)

Tender description

1.1 The CEMET West Wales & the Valleys and East Wales (WWV & EW) programme invites tenders for its final evaluation. As part of the evaluation of the 2014-2020 round of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funding, the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) requires beneficiaries to undertake a robust programme of monitoring and evaluation. Whilst the 2007-13 programmes focused on implementation, the emphasis for operations funded in the 2014-2020 programme is on identifying and providing evidence to support outcomes / results and impacts to understand why and how the intervention works.1.2 Underpinned by the concept of theory-based evaluation, it is anticipated that data other than that collected to support the formal WEFO output indicators will need to be gathered, in order to demonstrate the outcomes and impact of the CEMET programme in the short, medium and longer term.1.3 Separate initial and mid-term evaluations for the CEMET WWV and EW operations were completed in April 2019 and December 2021 respectively. These reports were commissioned as a baseline from which to measure the overall progress of the operation in terms of outputs, outcomes and impact.The aim of CEMET is to provide assistance to those SMEs experiencing difficulties in accessing existing UK and Welsh R&D funding sources.CEMET undertakes short term, collaborative R&D projects with SMEs, focussing on the development (and if appropriate, commercialisation) of products and services that have the potential to support businesses across all sectors, but in particular, those ‘Grand Challenge’ areas identified within Science for Wales.