Evaluation of the Federal Programme “Innovative ways for participation in working life – rehapro” (Programme Evaluation rehapro)

Since 2019, the federal rehapro program has been funding pilot projects run by job centers and statutory pension insurance providers over a period of five years in three funding calls. The aim of the model projects is to maintain or restore the employability of the participants, to reduce access to the disability pensions and social welfare, to prevent chronic illnesses or imminent disability, including in children and adolescents, and to improve social participation. The measures are meant to strengthen the principles of “prevention before rehabilitation” and “rehabilitation before retirement”. The Federal Programme is intended to implement and test innovative concepts that can be transferred to other areas. Therefore, the local projects are given a substantial amount of freedom to develop their own approaches.

In a consortium with the Institute for Work and Qualification (IAQ), the ISG Institute for Social Research and Social Policy, the Institute for Empirical Sociology at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (IfeS), the IGES Institute Berlin and the SOKO Institute, the IAW is responsible for the evaluation of the Federal Programme.

The evaluations provides answers to the following key questions:

• Which approaches turn out to be particularly effective?
• What are the results and effects at programme level?
• Which of the local approaches can be transferred to a higher level and how can they be sustained over a longer period?

The evaluation began with an exploration phase (task 1) and a typology of model projects with regard to the approaches pursued (task 2). A standardised survey of model projects (module 3) and a supporting monitoring of the inputs, outputs and results of the model projects (task 4) will provide important information. In the second phase of the evaluation, the focus will be on case studies on the implementation (task 5), surveys of participants and control persons (task 6) and an impact analysis (task 7). The IAW is responsible for the quantitative parts of the study, in particular a quantitative impact analysis.