This evaluation report is presented pursuant to article 12 of Council decision 1999/311/EC establishing the third phase of the Tempus programme (Tempus III (2000-2006)). It puts forward the Commission’s position on the main conclusions and recommendations.

Background : the first phase of Tempus, adopted in 1990 and initially covering the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), sought to contribute to socio-economic reform through cooperation between higher education institutions in the EU and in the Partner Countries. The 2nd phase of the programme extended the geographical coverage of the programme and also increased its ambition and expectation levels. Specific national priorities were introduced which complemented the original «bottom-up» approach whereby initiative rested exclusively with Universities. Two innovative aspects were then introduced to the third phase of Tempus (Tempus III) in 2000. In addition to the tried-and-tested country-specific approaches, particular emphasis was placed on the programme’s capacity to encourage regional co-operation and more explicit reference was made to the need to ensure consistency and complementarity with other Community programmes, and also to create synergies with other forms of assistance to the partner countries. With the extension of Tempus III to the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, the programme also sought to promote inter-cultural dialogue and understanding as a means to secure sustainable growth, peace and stability and reinforce the intercultural and civil society dimension of the programme.

Tempus III came to an end in December 2006. The fourth phase of the programme began in 2007 and has been managed by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency since April 2009.

External ex-post evaluation and recommendations : the external ex-post evaluation aimed to gain more insight in the Tempus III programme, to provide conclusions and concrete recommendations on how the current phase could be managed to better address any identified weaknesses and to maximise its relevance and impact, as well as exploit examples of good practice. The evaluation report makes a series of recommendations, which are listed below together with the Commission comments:

Recommendation 1 - Strengthen strategic programme orientation: the Commission agrees that policy dialogue can certainly be reinforced. In Tempus IV, a lot of effort has been deployed to strengthen the dialogue with ministries. Recommendation 2 - Improve effective synergy with Erasmus Mundus and other Community actions and encourage links with research: the Commission has undertaken a considerable effort to conceive TEMPUS IV and Erasmus Mundus in a complementary perspective. Encouraging links with research policies and programmes, and especially to the Marie Curie Actions, that aim at the international mobility of researchers and the development of their careers, is also one of the Commission's priorities. A specific theme of activities in Tempus IV is to support the development of the knowledge triangle in partner countries and a study has just been launched to take stock of doctoral studies in neighbouring countries, which includes also elements linked to research policies and programmes. In fact, the recommendation regarding complementarity should not be limited to Erasmus Mundus and Research but should also cover the other bilateral support in higher education that the Commission is making available in many partner countries through the Delegations mainly (budget support, sector programme). Linking existing regional initiatives to country based policy dialogue in the area of education should be part of the recommendation. Recommendation 3 - Reconsider level of funding in view of TEMPUS objectives: the Commission recalls that individual project budgets have increased in TEMPUS IV. It may be useful to investigate whether all the project funds have been spent and to eventually reconsider the individual project budgets in the light of future financial perspectives for the programme. It would also be important to reflect on the idea that increased funding could also be considered at the level of all involved regions in order to avoid large imbalances between countries (such as the Russian Federation) and regions (for instance the Mediterranean countries). Recommendation 4 - Enrich quality of project proposals: over recent years, the Commission has been investing heavily in the training of national training officers (NTOs) and national contact points (NCPs). Recommendation 5 - Improve the effectiveness of field monitoring: an updated field monitoring approach has been developed for Tempus IV. Three objectives of monitoring have been defined: preventative (early stages of project), advisory (mid-term) and control (ex-post). Quantitative targets have been fixed with a strong accent on the preventative function. In addition to these instruments, Result Oriented Monitoring visits are also undertaken to projects in many of the countries. Recommendation 6 - Give greater support to the NCPs in New Member States: the most important actors in the new Member States, in terms of sharing their experience of recent beneficiaries of the programme, are the universities. Considering funding opportunities for the NCPs, who are the Information Points in the Member States, is not possible. Recommendation 7 - Better define the involvement of the EU Delegations to improve the (structural) dialogue with the national authorities on higher education: the involvement of the EU Delegations is probably the area where there has been the most improvement over the last years. They are the prime interlocutor for the contacts with Ministries and are also involved in the group of Higher Education Reform Experts and are associated to their activities. Recommendation 8 - Continuation of TEMPUS-like projects after accession to the EU: the Commission is investing many efforts in preparing the candidate countries for their participation in the Lifelong Learning programme. Recommendation 9 - More emphasis on best practices – information on linkages with the labour market and civil society: University-enterprise cooperation is one of the priority themes under Tempus IV. More and more projects are taking place in this area and the involvement of business is encouraged in the call for proposals (multi-actor partnerships). Recommendation 10 - Give more priority to management reform projects: governance reform is one of the explicit priority themes under Tempus IV and more and more projects are tackling this issue. In 2010, three policy seminars will take place in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Morocco, engaging experts and policy makers in discussions on how to make university governance more transparent and efficient. Recommendation 11 - Give more attention to accessibility (equal opportunities) of the projects: equal opportunities are mentioned explicitly as a quality criterion in the Tempus IV call for proposals and can be mentioned more clearly during the Tempus Information Days. Recommendation 12 - Support additional ambitions of projects such as in the case of joint degrees or double diplomas: the Commission will explore the kind of additional ambitions and investigate the problems that projects might encounter. Recommendation 13 - Improve both dissemination and use of project results: dissemination is a quality criterion for the assessment of proposals and is also a major point of consideration during project monitoring. A lot has been done in this area in recent years. Thematic studies on university-enterprise cooperation, quality assurance and governance have been carried out and followed up by thematic seminars with a wide range of stakeholders attending.

Conclusion : the TEMPUS Programme remains highly relevant with respect to its main objective of promoting reform and modernisation of higher education at institutional level . The activities have at various levels contributed to reforms that otherwise would probably not have been carried out, or gained momentum at a much slower pace. At the same time it is clear that in many countries further progress in reforming the higher education sector is still needed and that important challenges in reforming higher education structures are still ahead or have just started. Tempus represents, for quite a number of partner countries, the sole window for cooperation with other institutions in other countries and it is the only working cooperation programme that the EU (and Member States) can offer to some of the countries.

The originality and the success of the programme lies very much in the " bottom-up ", demand driven approach where the higher education institutions undertake their own initiatives within a call for proposals with a large framework of possibilities, as well as the strong focus on institutional cooperation. The high level of people-to-people contact has helped to promote understanding between and rapprochement of cultures. These characteristics should be kept. Tempus, through its multilateral nature, the project approach and its management mechanisms, has proven to be a very cost-effective policy instrument, in particular compared to other classical technical assistance interventions.

Lastly, the Commission notes that Tempus is an identifiable and quality brand within the partner countries. It is also a highly respected programme within the EU and the Member States institutions. The Commission could consider the possibility of increasing the funding for all the regions covered by the programme as far as the financial framework permits and without prejudice of other cooperation priorities, in order to fully support the very ambitious objectives and challenges in higher education and the significant developments underway in the international academic community.

COM(2010)0190
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The Commission presents its annual report on the operation of the third phase of the Tempus Programme in 2006. In that year, Tempus was funded through three external cooperation regional programmes: CARDS (Western Balkans); MEDA (Eastern and Southern Mediterranean) and Tacis (Eastern Europe and Central Asia ). The Tempus budget in 2006 amounted to € 53.45 million broken down as follows between the three regions: Tacis: € 18.25 million, CARDS: € 17.2 million, MEDA: € 18 million.

The implementation of the programme in 2006 was guided by the following priorities:

- Reinforcing the dissemination and exploitation of project results : the Commission discusses the activities undertaken under this heading, and states that, for the vast majority of people interviewed for impact studies, Tempus is seen as an essential door to the European academic world that has greatly helped building cooperation with European universities. Tempus has provided opportunities to work with more than one EU country and to strengthen regional cooperation. Tempus is the only programme that deals with all aspects of higher education, while other donors usually cover only single element of the system.

- Strengthening field monitoring activities : a total of 44 projects covering all regions were visited during the 2005-06 monitoring campaign by desk officers in DG EAC/ETF. 80 projects were visited by National Tempus Offices. The overall findings about the areas of investigation are positive despite some marginal weaknesses. Many projects are sound with good results. However, there are still a number of less successful projects. Limited involvement of wider target groups or end users which affects sustainability, lack of internal monitoring of changing needs and assumptions as well as lack of staff capacity building can be considered as examples of weaknesses. These issues have started to be addressed more intensively. The launch of field monitoring by National Tempus Offices is a positive development which provides a new opportunity to enrich the Tempus monitoring system, but also represents a challenge in terms of harmonisation of practices and overall coordination.

Consolidating the role of National Tempus Offices : the efforts to consolidate the role of National Tempus Offices (NTOs) continued in 2006, through a number of key initiatives, such as their active involvement in field monitoring activities. After the development of a strategy for the involvement of NTOs in field monitoring, and a specific training session delivered to them in October 2005, all NTOs started to monitor Tempus projects in their countries. The NTO of Tajikistan was temporarily closed down.

With regard to programme management , five selection procedures were concluded during 2006. The number of applications per selection round has remained consistently high, which means that the programme continues to attract the interest of the academic community. In particular, the number of applications for Structural and Complementary Measures is increasing and their content is more strongly focusing on horizontal issues which are of importance for the reform and modernisation of higher education in the partner countries. Globally speaking, it can be observed that the submitted projects are increasingly in line with the national priorities established by the partner countries. Almost all selected projects adhere to national priorities.

At a general level, during 2006, commitments and payments under Tempus proceeded in line with the established planning. Other financial commitments in 2006 included:

-grants to National Tempus Offices: 5 amounting to € 0.31 million;

-grant to the European Training Foundation's Tempus Department that provides technical assistance to DG EAC: € 0.87 million;

-conferences and seminars: € 0.63 million.

Work on the elimination of the Tempus litigation files has progressed consistently throughout 2006. A total amount of € 1.1 million was recovered in 2006 either through direct reimbursement or through the offsetting procedure.

Conclusion: the implementation of the Tempus programme in 2006 was guided by a number of strategic objectives which have all been satisfactorily achieved. The continuous dialogue with national authorities and their close involvement in the definition of priorities and the selection of projects ensures that funded activities are relevant to the country’s needs and in line with national reform objectives. This ensures ownership by national governments and increases the impact of the programme’s interventions. National Tempus Offices in the partner countries have been further reinforced and play an important role in liaising with national authorities and other stakeholders. Feedback from national authorities and the results of the field monitoring have confirmed that Tempus continues to be a highly relevant programme for assisting partner countries in reforming and modernising their higher education systems.

COM(2007)0420
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PURPOSE : to present the Annual Tempus Report for the year 2004.

CONTENT : The implementation of the Tempus programme in 2004 was guided, inter alia, by the conclusions and recommendations of the mid-term evaluation published in November 2003. The evaluation confirmed the relevance of the programme to support higher education reform and development as well as the validity of its intervention logic and management approaches. The following recommendations were particularly relevant for the implementation of the programme in 2004:

- The process of formulation of the country-specific priorities should be strengthened by means of a more structured dialogue with the educational authorities of the partner countries.

- Tempus funds should be used for what the programme does best, i.e. promoting mobility, exchanges and innovation of study programmes.

- The relevance and the impact of the programme should be actively promoted at the level of the national authorities.

- Field monitoring should be reintroduced on a selective basis.

Against this background, the main Tempus action lines in 2004 were:

-Maximising the impact of the programme through a reinforced top-down approach, a strengthened policy dialogue, and more structural measures;

-Reinforcing mobility by promoting individual mobility grants;

-Adapting and reinforcing selection and monitoring procedures;

-Better defining the role of National Tempus Offices.

Overall, the report indicates that the implementation of the programme in 2004 was guided by the results of the 2003 interim evaluation of Tempus III (2000 - 2006). Dialogue and consultation with the authorities responsible for higher education in partner countries led to reinforced national priorities, which should contribute to maximise the programme’s impact on partner countries’ higher education development.

Tempus has also been instrumental in supporting partner countries’ efforts to put Bologna related issues high on their reform agenda. The increased support for individual mobility of higher education professionals and the introduction of structural and complementary activities, coupled with dialogue and national priorities, contributed to confirm Tempus as an instrument of choice for the implementation and formulation of partner countries’ higher education policies.

COM(2005)0515
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Decision 1999/311
OJ L 120 08.05.1999, p. 0030

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OJ C 087 29.03.1999, p. 0102
COM(1999)0052

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COM(1999)0052

OJ C 098 09.04.1999, p. 0483-0506
T4-0774/1998

Debate in Parliament

T4-0774/1998

2147

CES1442/1998
OJ C 040 15.02.1999, p. 0023

A4-0464/1998
OJ C 098 09.04.1999, p. 0005

A4-0464/1998

CDR0301/1998
OJ C 051 22.02.1999, p. 0086

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OJ C 270 29.08.1998, p. 0009
COM(1998)0454

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COM(1998)0454