Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper investigates evaluation practices to explore new forms of selection and enhancement of culture-driven initiatives. By analysing the characteristics of some calls for project, public initiatives for youth entrepreneurship and bottom-up culture driven urban regeneration initiatives, the paper highlights those aspects that should be taken into account to grasp the social relevance both in ex-ante and ex-post evaluations. The paper argues that evaluation can play a crucial role in increasing project quality providing applicants with a clearer territorial vision. At the same time evaluation, crucial in decision making process, cannot rely only on data, because they are seldom uniquely positive or negative. Moreover, to acknowledge innovation, public administrations should be innovative and revise their own evaluation criteria to be able to see what is out of the box.