Italy

Rome, Italy

Dates: Winter 2026
Course: PLCY689T

Even the best designed program can falter from poor implementation or management. Consequently, governments, multinational organizations, NGOs, and funders seek to improve program operations—using the tools of program evaluation to monitor program activities, outcomes, and costs. The most important tools they use include counterfactual identification, performance targets, and comparative effectiveness evaluations. 

This, in turn, creates a demand for staff able to apply and interpret these tools of evaluation-based program monitoring. The course seeks to advance the skills and careers of participants by helping them understand and use these tools in real-world settings. 

Students will learn how to: 

Apply common performance measurement frameworks;

• Use logic models to identify and operationalize key elements of performance indicators;
• Collect and analyze data performance data for program monitoring;
• Use counterfactuals, performance targets, and comparative effectiveness evaluations to gauge performance;
• Estimate program costs (including total costs, cost-efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and cost-benefit analysis);
• Develop and apply criteria to create new performance measures or to assess and improve existing performance measures;
• Anticipate potential pitfalls of performance measurement (such as cream skimming and goal displacement); and
• Apply the resulting data to improve program performance though management techniques and program adjustments and restructuring.

In addition to course instruction, the class will also visit senior officials of relevant Italian government offices, international organizations and NGOs in Rome and Florence. The meetings will include officials from the Bank of Italy; the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance; the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems (ANVUR); the Italian National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research (INDIRE); the Italian National Institute for the Evaluation of the Education and Training System (INVALSI); the Italian Senate; and UNICEF.

The course will culminate in the preparation of a set of performance measures for either an existing program familiar to the student, a proposed program or a program that is suggested by the instructors. Students will prepare a logic model for the program, use the logic model to identify and define, operationalize performance measures, describe how data will be collected for the performance measures on an ongoing basis, and, for outcome measures, identify the method for identifying counterfactuals that will be used for each of the measures. Students will then evaluate each of the performance measures using criteria discussed in the course. 

Classes will be in English.