Giuseppe Moro

Food policies play a crucial role in promoting sustainability transitions, but their evaluation needs an effort to be explored. This study carried out a scoping literature review to examine the evaluation methodologies used for food policies. Using the PRISMA approach, the paper analyses 88 scientific articles retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, identifying key research topics, methodologies, and indicators used in food policy assessment. Results highlight a predominance of qualitative methods, while quantitative approaches remain limited. Moreover, the study identifies a growing trend in integrating sustainability and governance into evaluation frameworks. The findings suggest the need for more robust and standardized quantitative evaluation tools to support evidence-based policymaking. This study contributes to the literature by providing a structured overview of evaluation methods and proposing future research directions to construct indices for food policy assessments.

This article, inspired by the epistemology of critical realism and its approach to assessing social and institutional change, elaborates on the impact of past welfare reform agendas in Europe, taking Italy and Germany as examples. Reading welfare state change through the lens of the concept of empowerment, it argues that such agendas should be studied by considering the nexus of different (coinciding) policies, the transformation of organisational settlements, and the reforms’ fit with encultured social expectations. Illustrating how a reform agenda containing a potential to enhance self-determination in the area of work and family life may simultaneously contribute to disempowerment, the article shows how a multidimensional ‘proto-evaluative’ endeavour may help develop a more holistic understanding of past welfare state change up to the outbreak of the Corona19 pandemic.

Purpose: The article describes an evaluation study to test the effectiveness of “Storie in gioco” project (Stories in Play, Storie in gioco [SIG]), a dropout prevention intervention aimed to prevent early school leaving (ESL) in at risk students. Method: The research used a mixed-method approach: in the quantitative phase, a two-group pre-/post evaluation design involving 230 students was used to estimate SIG outcomes; in the qualitative step, stakeholders’ focus group discussions and interviews have been used to interpret results. Results: Even if SIG appears to impact scholastic self-esteem and peer relationships, no effect was found when a comparison group matched for baseline measures was used. Based on qualitative data, the article identifies mechanisms influencing SIG outcomes and provides key insights into improving it. Conclusions: The authors emphasize the priority to develop programs to reduce intergenerational transmission of educational poverty and express methodological and theoretical considerations regarding SIG effectiveness and ESL prevention interventions.

The primary purpose of this study lies in the evaluation of what students acquire from studies abroad in the context of credit mobility, in terms of competence development and personal growth, compared with that gained by students completing their study or internship in their home country. A pre-post test design, with both an experimental group and a control group, was employed for students participating in the Erasmus programme and those continuing their regular course of study at their home university. The findings obtained suggest that study abroad programmes have a positive impact on the perception of university students. The highest values among Erasmus students in terms of outcomes were attributed to cultural enhancement, personal development and foreign language proficiency. Study abroad has, furthermore, a Europeanising impact inasmuch as it affects the self-identity of students.

The objective of the study is that of a planning document analysis of social and health-care policies developed by Italian regional governments during the period from 2007-2010, in order to identify a context analysis, objectives, actions relating to children and to verify the presence of an orientation to child’s rights.The document analysis concerning regional programmes for children was conducted employing a programme theory approach. This approach is used in order to compare programmes that, while very different in breadth and general scope, are nevertheless intervention plans for children, with the purpose of identifying the presence of common models and classifying any resulting differences.

This paper summarises results from the evaluation of an e-government project carried out by the Evaluation Unit of Puglia Regional Administration. The research focuses on the implementation of the Regional ICT Network (RUPAR) and identifies main effects of penetration of e-government. RUPAR is designed to interconnect Local Public Administrations with a service infrastructure, a potentially crucial factor for innovation in the public administrations. RUPAR was created using EU and national funds. Concluded in May 2008, the evaluation addresses the following issues: How were the services available through the RUPAR actually used? What effects have the enhancement of e-government produced? Which were the barriers to e-government integration? A direct survey method was adopted, aimed at a sample of 95 local administrations. The study revealed that many steps still need to be taken towards a network usage that will trigger processes of innovation within the PA and in their relations with end-users.