The concept of evaluation and the previously outlined points of reference seek to meet the new challenges evaluation must address today: Public policy decisions must be timely, so evaluation must be prompt. A background of rapid change, crisis management and uncertainty call for operational outcomes delivered in real time and, increasingly, in a virtual space.

Twenty-first-century evaluation does not fit in with old bureaucratic paradigms that are no longer compatible with the new needs of public management. Without impairing technical rigour or operational effectiveness, we need to meet decision-makers' needs at the right time for the strategic standpoint to be properly served.

This new dimension of evaluation should not lose sight of historic baggage, however, such as the theoretical and practical know-how developed over time and have helped make evaluation a specific institutional activity with its own distinctive identity: