Welcome to the Ways Forward for Impact Assessment seminar homepage.

This seminar is part of the ECORYS Seminar Cycle. In 2009, ECORYS proudly celebrates its 80th anniversary (see column to the right for more information). The Seminar Cycle encompasses several international seminars in the Netherlands, the UK, Belgium and Poland.
These seminars will be taking place during 2009 (see column to the left for more information).

Ex-ante impact assessment is an increasingly important tool for making better policies at EU, national and regional level. Over the past few years, significant efforts have been made to improve the quality of impact assessment, especially at EU level.

A good impact assessment needs to draw on the best available information to arrive at judgements about the economic, social and environmental impacts of policy measures being proposed. Obtaining the types of information required is often difficult, and stakeholder organisations, who know the populations, sectors and territories concerned, have a valuable role to play. However, those involved in impact assessment regularly face the challenge of distinguishing between real evidence and mere opinion.

This seminar sought to address this challenge. It has explored how information and data from the world of policy research and evidence-based analysis can be combined more effectively with insights from stakeholder consultation.

The seminar took place against the background of a changing policy context. The recession in which Europe finds itself calls for swift but carefully considered action. The pending EU Lisbon Treaty redefines EU objectives and increases the scope for decisive action but also reinforces the role of stakeholders in European policy-making. The European Commission, other EU institutions and European citizens attach increasing importance to impact assessment - raising expectations and requirements in terms of methodological quality and stakeholder input.

The aim of Ways Forward for Impact Assessment seminar was to reflect on the past and the future of EU ex-ante impact assessment, in particular the difficult marriage between objective evidence and stakeholder input. It reflected on how these two main sources of information for impact assessment can be moved closer together, for instance, through improving the evidence base of stakeholder input.