The Commission, coordinated by Alberto Zuliani, has examined various aspects of the evaluation of scientific research and research & development activity, starting out from the consideration that although methods and instruments are different, they are often integrated, depending on the ends being pursued: guidance and support for defining policies; evaluation of laws and in general of actions to support research; evaluation of research institutes; evaluation of programmes and projects; evaluation of groups and individuals. Once it completed its works, the Commission produced a White Paper (Marsilio, Venice, 2007). The Paper analysed the most significant experiences of research evaluation in Italy: those of the Steering Committee for research evaluation, (CIVR), and of the National Committee for the evaluation of the university system (CNVSU); the experiences of research projects of national interest; research & development experiences in the private sector. There is a critical review of the main evaluation instruments and methods adopted in different national and international contexts and referred to in literature. Some main recommendations are put forward on institutional, substantive and methodological aspects, in order to make progress in the evaluation process, aware that the road ahead is long and not easy. Few people indeed doubt the need, and the possibility, for scientific communities and research and development institutes to be held to account for the deployment of resources entrusted to them and for results obtained. Nevertheless, the experiences considered have highlighted resistance and contradictions, and point to the need to proceed gradually, and in any case along clear lines. It is necessary to bear in mind that evaluation in the areas of research and R&D is quite a new process, for which the political sphere is ill-prepared, and the full technical apparatus still has to be put in place. Everybody, from parliament and the government to institutions, enterprises, research groups and individual researchers must face up to this problem without any preconceptions and with a readiness to learn.