Developing the EURARI index - an impact assessment model derived from the euarenas Experience

The idea of this document is to provide practical guidelines on how to proceed with an impact assessment of deliberative democracy initiatives and with the various projects that can originate from them. Assessing the impact of an initiative is not easy. There are a series of steps that need to be followed, and the strategy to implement is strictly related to the type of initiative that is undertaken. There are, however, procedural characteristics that are common to impact assessment across different initiatives. The first thing to determine is which type of impact we are interested in measuring. Initiatives have different objectives, stakeholders, recipients and so on. The impacts that the initiative might have, are multiple as well. The results of an initiative can be assessed in terms of economic, social, urban, environmental, cultural impact just to mention a few. Indeed, depending on the type of initiatives, some impacts might be stronger than others, while complex initiatives’ results might need to be assessed from different perspectives at the same time. Therefore, the type of impact to assess is derived by the results that the promoter wants to achieve. At the same time, the creation of an overarching framework to assess impact, helps in comparing initiatives across a single Program such as the EUARENAS one. Therefore, while still allowing for the development of ad hoc indicators depending on the different goals of the initiatives under consideration, this document tries to develop a consistent framework for impact analysis.