The focus of this paper is policy evaluation understood as a decision-making function discussed from a theoretical perspective in relation to the problem of its institutionalization, with a specific perspective on the training strategy within the National School of Administration. With respect to this premise, the paper aims to deal with four questions concerning (i) the context of use of policy evaluation; (ii) the decision-making function; (iii) the process of institutionalization and (iv) the training strategy for institutionalizing policy evaluation in Italian policy making. All four point will be discussed through the lenses of policy process analysis. Evidence from the National School of Administration will support the last point about the bottom up strategy through civil servants training. According to this aim, the paper provides an overview on the main drivers of institutionalization by treating them at the surface in order to give the reader an insight for reinforcing the introduction of policy evaluation in decision making (and against the risks of a superstructural adoption of a merely formal type, technically unexceptionable, but substantially outside the processes of decision-making).