Support centre WVG Healthy nutrition at school

This project is part of the “Healthy Food at School” call for projects, which stems from the ambition of the Flemish coalition agreement 2024-2029 and the WVGA policy note to offer healthy food at school to children, with the aim of promoting children's health, well-being and learning performance. For the 2025-2026 school year, this was further developed through a call for projects, in which local authorities could sign up to develop and implement initiatives around healthy food at school. This project involves conducting a preliminary study to determine which monitoring strategy and verifiable indicators can be used to evaluate the “healthy food at school” subsidy line in the short term (participation in the programme) and in the longer term (impact). This preliminary study can serve as a preparatory step for a later study and helps to create a substantiated measurement framework/methodology that is both feasible and policy-relevant. It also indicates which of these indicators are already being monitored through research or administrative data collection. The preliminary study will further identify which research questions are most relevant and how these can best be addressed using qualitative and/or quantitative research methods. We will base this on the research questions provided by the Flemish Government: 
OV 1: What is the current status of the implementation of the ‘healthy food in schools’ call for projects: what is the profile of the pupils being reached, which schools are participating (profile) and what exactly is being offered as a result of participation in the call for projects?
RQ2: Which effects (impact) of the ‘healthy food in schools’ funding scheme can be measured in a meaningful and reliable way during and at the end of the legislative term, whilst sufficiently abstracting from the broader health policy in schools? Which indicators are measurable and policy-relevant for this purpose? What methodological recommendations can we formulate to measure the project’s impact at the end of the legislative term?
OV3: In line with research question 2, we are therefore seeking measurement methods, measurement points, data links or data collection strategies suitable for a subsequent evaluation study of the funding line. Additionally, we are examining the research question of whether a baseline measurement is required for this?
OV4: Which indicators are currently being tracked to monitor the project impact of the ‘Healthy Eating at School’ project?

OV5: What existing data and indicators are already available within schools or other data sources, and on which of these can further data analysis be carried out in order to assess the project’s impact?