| Effectiveness criteria: main categories | Policy forum | Political forum | |
| Criteria linked to the organisation of interactions | Group size | Smaller number of delegates or the presence of issue-specific sub-groups | Number of delegates irrelevant (all actors should be included) |
| Agenda | Reasonable number of agenda items | Number of agenda items irrelevant (all items should be concluded) | |
| Stability of representation | No or low turnover rate | No or low turnover rate | |
| Position of the committee | Inter-committee relations not necessarily relevant | Strong SPC | |
| Criteria linked to the distribution of resources | Experience | Equally experienced delegates | Equally experienced delegates |
| Human resources at national level | Sufficient human resources in national ministries | Sufficient human resources in national ministries | |
| Seniority and mandate | Senior members and/or experts | Senior members and/or strong national mandate | |
| Language skills | Good language skills | Good language skills | |
| Consensus | Consensus-seeking attitude | Consensus-seeking attitude | |
| Discourse coalitions | Not strong discourse coalitions ("epistemic community") | Well-balanced or not very strong discourse coalitions (compromise should be reached easily) | |
The most important and differentiating factors are marked in italics.