At the end of the 1980s, a decade before the first government initiatives, Eric Monnier became keenly interested in public policy evaluation. This interest stemmed from his culture as both a sociologist and a former engineer, for evaluation can be defined as a field of applied social science. In 1987 he published the first book in French proposing the innovative approach of "pluralistic evaluation" (Cf. Evaluation de l’action des pouvoirs publics, Economica, 1987).

The Ministry of Infrastructure (Ministère de l’Equipement) suggested in 1988 that it set up the first research centre devoted to public policy evaluation, at the Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics (ENTPE) in Lyons. After an operational career in territorial development and extensive experience in the evaluation unit of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research, Jacques Toulemonde joined the project.
In 1990 the Prime Minister decided to set up an ambitious inter-ministerial apparatus, including a scientific committee for evaluation (Conseil Stratégique de l’Evaluation) consisting of senior government officials and academics (including E. Monnier). The research centre at the ENTPE, boosted by this dynamic, rapidly grew into a unit consisting of twenty researchers and PhD students.

Over the years the officials in charge of evaluation of the European Structural Funds increasingly relied on the Centre, which consequently acquired an international reputation in its field. In 1993 it was instrumental in the establishment of the European Evaluation Society (EES), with the Audit Office of the Netherlands, in particular, and five years later in that of the French Evaluation Society (SFE)

At the time, Eric Monnier and Jacques Toulemonde designed an ambitious programme to develop Methods for Evaluating Actions of a Structural Nature (MEANS). With the aim of furthering their professional involvement, they decided to set up a private consultancy firm to assist the European Commission in developing its methods. The Ministry of Infrastructure supported them in this venture.

Thus, the Centre for European Evaluation Expertise was born in Lyons in 1994. The firm won a contract for the implementation of a three-year programme with an annual budget close to one million euros. At the time the team consisted of ten emplyees representing seven different nationalities and over five disciplines (economists, political scientists, sociologists, a geographer, a town planner, etc.).

In 2000, the C3E set up a branch of about the same size in Paris, to meet the demand in the western and northen parts of France. In 2002, when a non-profit association hosted by the Ecole des Arts et Métiers claimed anteriority in the use of the name "C3E", the firm renamed EUREVAL, Centre for European Evaluation Expertise.

The EUREVAL team has authored more publications on evaluation than anyone else in Europe.The MEANS programme, for example, was concluded in 1998 with a collection of six volumes (over 1200 pages) in French and English. This edition was sold out within six months but the most important information is available on line (EVALSED).

In 2007, EUREVAL produced three of the four volumes of the new collection of methodological EuropeAid handbooks, published in three languages in printed form and on line.

Jacques Toulemonde has co-edited one of the international collective volumes on evaluations involving several governments levels, in the series Comparative Policy Evaluation.

Initially there was a strond demand for EUREVAL to develop and enhance the evaluation skills of government administrations. Apart from producing handbooks, the firm held a large number of training seminars attended by several thousand European and French civil servants. Certain administrations entrusted it with the training of all their staff concerned by evaluation, for instance: DG Agriculture at the European Commision (over 300 individuals) and, in France, the Nord-Pas de Calais Region (over 200) and the Val d’Aoste Region (over 150).

With time, the missions entrusted to EUREVAL evolved from "project management assistance" towards carrying out evaluations as such. Today the firm has over one hundred references in evaluation in many different fields, for example : regional development, corporate development, social insertion, sustainable development, development aid, etc.

After more than a decade in developing evaluation, EUREVAL is now investing its energy in meeting a new challenge : facilitating the mergence of a new profession, public policy design. A practice called "policy design" has been developing rapidly in Northern Europe, but has no equivalent in France other than some fragmented approaches (forecasting, diagnostics, public debate, impact studies, ex ante evaluation, etc.).

It was in this perspective that we organized the first French conference on the theme: « How to improve public policy design? Strategic approaches and policy design tools » at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (18-19 november 2004).