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This article focuses on the impact of research and education evaluation on two universities: Trento State University (Italy) and the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). The article adopts a system approach to evaluation and proposes a model to describe and analyse evaluation systems. The analysis has been carried out by means of in‐depth interviews with key decision‐makers involved in the two universities. The analysis shows that many of the differences in impact can be linked to the different ‘evaluation stages’ the universities are currently in; the Italian university experiencing a number of novel effects, with the Dutch university reaping the benefits (and experiencing some problems) of having institutionalized evaluation practices.