ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by discussing the progress of Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) procedures on the EU policy-evaluation agenda. It discusses the importance of the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON) in financing the elaboration of TIA tools. The chapter undertakes a more critical and detailed analysis of the TIA tools produced under the auspices of the ESPON programmes (2002–6 and 2007–14), namely in terms of their relevance to the EU policy-evaluation agenda. It examines the future of TIA tools, particularly in relation to their wider generalisation with the goal of evaluating nationally financed policies. In a broad assessment, TIA tools can be regarded as the final outcome of a relatively old and long EU policy-evaluation process. A major challenge that faces public authorities, responsible for designing and implementing public development policies, is how to select the most cost-efficient policy-evaluation methods, to assess which investments produce better outcomes, results and impacts.
