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Enterprise Development Impact Assessment Information Service (EDIAIS)

NEW DIRECTIONS IN IMPACT ASSESSMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT: METHODS AND PRACTICE

Marialuisa Tamborra, European Commission, DG Research

Developing Tools for Sustainability Impact Assessment: the Role of Socio-economic Research in the EU

Link to full paper

ABSTRACT

This paper presents some of the future strands for research in the area of Sustainable Development. The background is the Communication of the European Commission on Impact Assessment, in which the European Commission committed itself to perform an Impact Assessment of all major policy proposals, in order to improve their sustainability. The application of the impact assessment in policy-making is expected to become a powerful instrument for the EU to respond to its Göteborg commitments to implement Sustainable Development.

A preliminary overview of the methodologies and tools used in the first few Impact assessments done at the European Commission confirms that the European research Community has an important role to play in providing tools for the assessment of the environmental, economic and social impacts of policy initiatives. Some results were achieved in the past research Framework programmes, such as the development of economic and sectoral models. Some of them will be reviewed in this paper and their policy linkage will be demonstrated, with a specific reference to Climate change. The new challenge consists now in adapting these models and creating new ones that respond to the needs of Sustainable Development.

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