The previous Phases result in a wide range of proposals in the form of profiles or projects, framed in one or more of the modalities associated with knowledge already described. These are proposals presented by a wide variety of actors, ranging from traditional actors, researchers and research centers, to a variety of organizations and individuals who are associated with knowledge and technologies: companies, professional groups, non-governmental organizations, as well as networks and alliances between some of these actors, who also present in a succinct manner the set of ideas that support the proposal, in addition to some technical and administrative details. Now in this phase there are formulated the projects that suppose the exhaustive development of the proposal according to the established requirements by the Agenda Coordination.

The goal of this phase is to encourage the presentation of projects under a single methodology (logical framework), which meet the determined evaluation criteria.

The differentiation between pre-projects and projects arises from two types of failure detected in the reception of proposals: weaknesses in the formulation of projects and difficulties in understanding the requirements that the Agenda proposals must meet.  These shortcomings have led to a strategy for the initial reception of pre-projects that allows an initial evaluation to be made by the Agenda team; the selected proposals go through an Agenda Project Formulation Workshop that seeks to have well-developed projects, reduce the percentage of rejections and guarantee the integrity of the projects received and financed.

In any case, after the workshop, the process of receiving final projects begins and the evaluation phase begins.  This is one of the critical nodes in the process of the Agendas, as it involves at least two important changes with respect to traditional evaluation practices. Firstly, the evaluation criteria incorporate criteria and indicators that exceed those of an academic nature. Second, the technical groups or commissions in charge of the evaluation are made up of both members of the academic community (peers) and professionals associated with the context of application; that is, from the productive sector or civil society organizations.

The evaluation criteria of the Agendas respond to the need to have a broad system of social, economic, technical and political criteria that allow knowledge to be assumed from the perspective previously outlined in the six modalities for its application. It is therefore necessary to highlight the systemic nature of the indicators, in the sense that they must be considered in relation to each other, while the weighting of each criterion is equally relational and will also depend on “State of art” and the development of the thematic area of the Agenda in question. Below is a description of some of the criteria for evaluating the Agendas.

Technical Criteria

Technical Quality: judges the theoretical, conceptual and methodological rigour and consistency of the project, as well as the technical-professional credentials of the people in charge and others involved.

Relevance: it identifies and characterizes the social, productive and/or environmental impact (quantitative and qualitative) of the project results, its impact on aspects such as the quality of life of the population, the productivity and competitiveness of enterprises and/or the development of public policies.

Feasibility: it estimates the project's implementation capacity in social, political, organizational and financial terms, according to the project's development time.

Opportunity: it evaluates the viability of the project, the governance in relation to the environment or economic, political, social and environmental situation.
Partnership criteria

Interinstitutional: identifies and characterizes the quality and quantity of associative forms established by the project proponents with other institutions linked to the object of the project.

Inter. And Transdisciplinary: judges how the project integrates approaches and methodologies from various disciplines associated with its object.

Co-financing: it evaluates the contribution that the proposing institutions make in terms of finance, human capacities and material resources.

Relationship with Users-Beneficiaries-Demanders: judges the degree of identification and linkage that the project maintains with the institutions that may be users-beneficiaries of the project's results.

With these criteria, the Technical Commissions, assisted by external referees, evaluate the projects that reach the Agenda Coordination. In the end, there is a set of projects framed in any of the modalities already described, fully evaluated and subject to a concerted implementation scheme.