Manager and Senior Expert in competitiveness and innovation
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Ecorys Policy Brief 2: 'Ways Forward for Impact Assessment: Connecting Evidence and Stakeholder Input'
The purpose of this Policy Brief is to reflect on the presentations and discussions that made up the successful ex-ante impact assessment seminar co-organised by IDEA Consult in Brussels on 22 September 2009.
Since the early 2000s, Impact Assessments for European Institutions have accounted for an increasing share of the work of ECORYS, the Group to which IDEA Consult belongs. In the scope of this work, the importance attached to stakeholder consultation and involvement has grown over time. Indeed, interest groups and representative organisations now play a significant role in EU policy formulation and, as part of this, have become a component of the Community Impact Assessment process. At the same time, increasing emphasis has been placed on evidence-based policy making. This is exemplified by the growing demand of quantitative and qualitative ex-ante evidence concerning the economic, social and environmental effects of proposed measures. These two parallel trends - involvement of stakeholders and enhancing evidence-based policy-making - defined the topic of the seminar. They thus provided the angle from which to reflect on the future of Community Impact Assessment, taking into account the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, the arrival of a new Commission, and, in the background, one of the worst economic crises ever.
