On 25 November 2025, researchers from the DATA26 team, together with Trenčín 2026 project manager Annamária Martonyiková and City of Trenčín project manager Petra Mikulášová, attended the final evaluation conference MONITOR 2024 Conference in the Norwegian city of Bodø – located just above the Arctic Circle. Bodø held the title of European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2024, and the aim of the conference was to assess the results and impacts of the project.
When evaluation is done thoroughly: data, models, and artificial intelligence
The MONITOR 2024 research team from Nord University presented the outcomes of their multi-year impact study of #Bodo2024. Their work can be considered one of the most methodologically robust research approaches within ECoC evaluation.
In addition to standard methods, they combine:
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theory of change,
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SROI (Social Return on Investment),
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and a completely new economic simulation model—a digital twin of the city of Bodø, which is freely accessible for testing at: https://regiometrics.no.
Research innovation was also evident in their AI-based media analysis, which you can read more about in English here:
https://site.nord.no/monitor2024/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2025/06/FoURapport1242025.pdf.
An international dimension and a cultural experience
Alongside the main programme, the conference offered a rich artistic programme, a speech by the Mayor of Bodø, and participation from other research teams representing European Capitals of Culture—Oulu 2025, Valletta 2018, and Tartu 2024.
An important contribution came from lectures by megaproject evaluation expert Dr. Beatriz Garcia and renowned researcher Dr. Valentina Montalto, who presented the “White Paper” on the European Capitals of Culture.
The DATA26 researchers reflected on their experience as follows:
The research journey of the MONITOR 2024 team is very personal to us, as we collaborated closely with them within the TREBØ project, funded by the EEA and Norway Grants. Because of this, we were already familiar with many of their research projects before the conference, and some of their approaches even inspired our own evaluation.
For the DATA26 team, attending the conference was especially important in preparing our own final evaluation conference planned for 2027. We were able to observe the structure of such an event, the ways research findings and key insights can be presented, and how complex data and analyses can be made accessible to both expert and general audiences.
The conference also brought valuable new contacts. With Dr. Valentina Montalto, we discussed how to translate “European-ness” into the implementation of the project itself, as well as ways to capture this dimension in measurements and indicators. With our international expert from Liverpool John Moores University, Prof. Rafaela Ganga, we met in person to discuss ongoing and planned steps in our collaboration.
We also met historian Marte Stavrum Fagertun from Nord University in Bodø, who worked on the Protitlak research project, with whom we discussed the upcoming Norwegian-Slovak publication presenting the results of this research.
The MONITOR 2024 team will soon publish their final report, which will be available on the official MONITOR 2024 project website:
https://site.nord.no/monitor2024/home/.
We congratulate the MONITOR 2024 research team on a successful conference and look forward to further collaboration.
