Impact Assessments in Europe

Our team

Professor Ioannis Lianos, Gutenberg Chair, ENA

Ioannis Lianos (LL.B, D.E.A., PhD in Law and Economics University of Strasbourg; LL.M in Trade Regulation, New York University Law School; PhD in Sociology prob. University of Cambridge; Lauréat, Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, France) is Professor of Competition Law and Public Policy at the Faculty of Laws at UCL in London and the Gutenberg Research Chair at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in France. Ioannis is the Director of the Centre for Law, Economics and Society, a Co-Director of the Centre for Law & Governance in Europe and a Co-Director of the Institute of Global Law at UCL Laws. Ioannis is a qualified attorney at the Athens and Paris bars. Ioannis is Chairman and Executive Director of IMEDIPA.

He is Visiting Professor in Competition and Intellectual Property Law at the Universities of Chile in Santiago and the University of Strasbourg and Fellow at the Centre for Law & Economics at the Australian National University. He has previously been an Emile Noel Fellow at the Jean Monnet Centre at New York University School of Law and at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Ioannis has been a Non Governmental Adviser (NGA) at the International Competition Network (ICN) since 2009, a research partner to UNCTAD in competition law and policy since 2010 and an elected member of the advisory board of the American Antitrust Institute since 2010.  He is the general editor (with Danny Sokol) of the Stanford University Press, Global Competition Law and Economics Series.

His primary research interest lie in European and comparative competition law, international competition law, European Union law (internal market, external relations), comparative administrative and regulatory law (public-private partnerships, public utilities law), law and economics and economic sociology.

He is the author and editor of seven books and more than 50 articles in journals and chapters in edited volumes. His most recent books include The Global Limits of Competition Law (Stanford University Press, 2012), The European Union after the Treaty of Lisbon (Cambridge U Press, 2012) and Regulating Trade in Services in the EU and the WTO – Trust, Distrust and Economic Integration (Cambridge U Press, 2012).

Fabrice Larat, Head of the Research Centre CERA of the ENA

Dr Fabrice Larat is director of the research department at the French national school of public administration (ENA). He is Editor in chief of Revue francaise d’administration publique, the leading journal dedicated to public administration in France. He is a graduate of the Institut d´Etudes Politiques in Lyons and of the Graduate Institute of European Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in contemporary history from the Institut d´Etudes Politiques of Paris, France. From 1994 to 2004, he was working as a political scientist at the University of Mannheim, Germany, before being appointed as research manager of CONNEX, an international network of excellence funded by the European Union from 2004-2008, dedicated to the topic "Efficient and Democratic Governance in a Multi-level Europe". His research interests focus on governance issues as well as on various aspects of political integration in Europe. He is the author of numerous academic publications in French, German and English.

Mihaly Fazekas, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Currently a PhD student in social sciences at the University of Cambridge (UK) at the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies, Mihaly is a fellow researcher for the Gutenberg Chair at the ENA. After having obtained a MA in teaching and an MSc in Economics from the Corvinus University of Budapest, as well as a Master of Public policy at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, he now regularly works with the OECD (Paris), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest) and the University of Cambridge (UK). Mihaly’s personal and professional goal is to contribute to more informed policy-making throughout Europe by producing high quality research based on a holistic understanding of human action. 

Mihaly is in charge of the quantitative research methods aspects of the project as well as of the statistical analysis of the data. He is responsible for Impact Assessments in Hungary; furthermore, he contributes to the drafting of funding applications and is a member of the research design team. He will also contribute to the drafting of the preliminary report.

Mihaly is the co-investigator of the Impact Assessment project.

Ruben Alba Aguilera, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Ruben holds a degree in economics from the University of Malaga and a Master's degree from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium).  He has been working for more than six years for the European institutions in different positions: from managing development cooperation projects in Guatemala and in Brussels to the promotion of SME support measures in the EU.  

He has experience carrying out impact assessment at the EU level and truly believes IA can be an effective tool to ensure that decision-making is based on sound scientific evidence. As part of the Gutenberg project, he will work on impact assessments in Spain while supporting the EU team.

Eduard Alia, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Eduard received a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Legal Studies at NYU Law School in 2009.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) at Brunel University where he was awarded First Class Honours and a Special Commendation for his strong performance in EU and public international law. Following his graduation Eduard interned and worked with some leading international law firms such as Lovells and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He also spent some time with the in-house legal department of Intel Corporation where he focused mainly on regulatory and competition matters. 

His areas of interest are primarily EU and international law.  He has been a guest lecturer at various London universities and often speaks on his areas of interest at conferences.

George Anglitoiu, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

George is Associate Professor in International Relations and European Studies at the Department of International Relations and European Integration (The National School for Political Studies and Public Administration, SNSPA - Bucharest). PhD in European Security at the University of Bucharest, member of the Brzezinski Chair for Central and Eastern Europe (CSIS - Washington DC), member of the Commission for the History of International Relations (CHIR - Rome), vice-president of the Romanian Association for International Relations and European Studies (ARRISE - Bucharest). Teaches BA / MA  courses on Foreign Policy Analysis, Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, The EU Neighborhoods, The Asymmetrical Risks and Threats, The Unconventional Dimensions of International Security, The Basis of EU Governance. Former Personal Adviser to the Head of the PM Chancellery, acting Head of the Advocacy and Communications Service of the Romanian Competition Council.

Bogdan Berceanu, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Bogdan is currently a PhD student in administrative sciences at the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest. The research area of his PhD dissertation is about the issue of emerging administrations on Southeastern Europe. 

He holds a master degree in administrative sciences, specialization in European public space from the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Faculty of Public Administration and he also has a diploma from the Academy of European Public Law from Athens. Bogdan holds two bachelor degrees. One is in law from the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Law and the second is in administrative sciences, European administration specialization from the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Faculty of Public Administration. 

Bogdan is currently working as research assistant at the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration where he is in charge of coordinating the tutorial activities for the 3rd year of study (Bachelor Degree studies, Distance Learning Department).  He has also held seminars on these subjects activity: “Politics and Public Administration”, “Strategic Management” and “Research project” in the Bachelor cycle, “Structures, mechanisms and institutions of the EU” in the Master cycle. 

Viktória Bognar, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Viktória holds an MA in European Law and Economic Analysis from the College of Europe (Brugge) and is currently on leave from the MA programme in Economic Policy at Central European University. Previously, she obtained two undergraduate degrees at Corvinus University of Budapest, one in Applied Economics and the second one in International Relations with a specialisation in European Studies. 

Her main area of interest is in the economic and legal aspects of competition and regulation in network industries. At the moment, she is a trainee at DG Competition of the European Commission where she contributes to antitrust enforcement in energy markets. She gained practical experience in (regulatory) impact assessments through her previous work engagements and she is the 2012 awardee of the Mayer Brown Legal Business Prize for the best thesis concerning the impact of EU law on business. 

She speaks Hungarian, English, Italian, Russian, French and Lithuanian. 

Thea Bygjordet, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Thea Bygjordet holds a Master degree from the Institut d´études politiques (IEP) in Strasbourg in European Economic and Regulatory Law (Droit de l´Economie et de la Régulation en Europe) and a Master degree from the Freie Universität Berlin in European and International Business, Competition and Regulatory Law. She mainly focuses on the legal dimension of energy security and energy policy of the European Union. 

Her background is in International Relations and European Studies, and she holds an academic proficiency in several European languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Scandinavian languages). Thea finished her Bachelor´s degree in European Studies at NTNU, Trondheim, Norway.  

Thea’s personal and professional goal is to be able to enhance her understanding of the relationship between law and politics. The Gutenberg chair and the project of Impact Assessment is a first-hand opportunity in order to work in an international environment and learn how policy measures can be effectively implemented. Thea is responsible for the Impact Assessment of Norway and Sweden and will work with the team at the ENA in Strasbourg in 2012.

Pablo González de Zárate Catón, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Pablo González de Zárate Catón holds both a master degree in Law and in Business Management by the University of Valladolid (Spain), where he worked for two years as a research assistant in the Department of Constitutional Law. After having obtained a MA in European Interdisciplinary Studies in the College of Europe (Natolin), he moved to Brussels where he worked in the Castilla y Leon Delegation to the EU. Since March, he has worked for the European Commission accomplishing quality checks of the impact assessment and ex-post evaluations carried out by DG Mare.

From October on he will pursue his studies in Competition Law and IPR at the University of Liege, where he previously studied within the framework of the Erasmus programme.

Doris Cayon, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Doris graduated last year with a Master's degree with honors from the University of Nancy (France). She is currently taking part in a LLM program in European and International Business Law at the University of Vienna (Austria). She is also preparing a Master 2 in International and European Business Law and completed her last year of a Magister (which is a three year university degree) at the University of Nancy (France). Next year she will study in an advanced Master in International Business Law and Management at the ESSEC Business School (Paris, France).

Jana Gutierréz Chvalkovská, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Jana holds master degree in Law and Legal Science and in Economics from the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, where she is currently continuing her studies as PhD student at the Institute of Economic Studies. Her research is focused on the analysis of economic impact of regulation and on public governance. 
In her work as consultant for a Prague-based consultancy EEIP, she advises various public bodies concerning the elaboration of the Regulatory Impact Assessment. 

During her career she has collaborated on RIA with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Industry and Trade among others. In 2011 Jana was appointed Counsel to the Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic, where she is in charge for strategic advisory to public bodies. Her major project for the Chamber was the  drafting of a chapter on the institutional reform of the strategy of international competitiveness of the Czech Republic for the period 2012 – 2020, which was approved by Czech government in September 2011. 

Apart from her academic and professional work, Jana with her colleagues from the Charles University runs a NGO Center of Applied Economics focused on anti-corruption evidence-based research presented as zIndex.cz project.

Thomas Delille, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Thomas just obtained his PhD in Law from the University of Luxembourg. He holds a LL.M from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he focused on EU Administrative Law. He also has a Master degree in European Litigation from the University of Strasbourg and the University of Luxembourg. 

He has worked as a Researcher at the University of Luxembourg. His PhD Thesis focuses on Regulatory Impact Assessment within European Union Law. He evaluated the legal consequences of the use of RIA in EU normative activities. He also analyzed the contribution of the procedural tool in shaping an administrative model for the EU, as well as the role of the European Commission within such evolution. Thomas also has working experience at the European Court of Justice and in an EU-wide Competition Law firm. He speaks French, English, and German.

Benjamin Fraas, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Benjamin is a fellow researcher for the Gutenberg Chair at the ENA. Having obtained a B.A. in "Philosophy and Economics" at the University of Bayreuth and a "Master of Public Policy" at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, he has worked at the German Chancellery, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and several short-term research projects during the last four years. 

Benjamin is both interested in learning about academic findings from the fields of economics, management and (social) psychology - but also turning them into down-to-earth, sustainable and functional projects, policies and organizational processes. Within this project, Benjamin is responsible for the impact assessments in Germany.

Révész Gabor, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Gábor has studied economics at Corvinus University Budapest and was a member of Széchenyi István College for Advanced Studies where he took numerous courses centered on public economics.  He worked as intern for Eltinga Center for Real Estate Research at Eötvös Loránd University, where he, among other projects, took part in a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Budapest office market from the data collection to the finishing touches, which was quite a valuable experience for him.  

At the moment he is on leave from the Economics MA programme of the Central European University, Budapest, and deals with Impact Assessments in Hungary as well as with quantitative and statistical analysis. 

Jáchym Hercher, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Jáchym holds an MSc degree in Public Policy from University College London and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Charles University in Prague. He currently works as a Policy Evaluator at the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, responsible primarily for quantitative analysis, and is a part-time student at Charles University.

Previously, Jáchym has been a subcommittee member in the Czech National Economic Council, working in the Competitiveness and Support for Business chapter, and also worked as a research assistant to lecturers at Charles University. Aside from that he has worked and volunteered for various NGOs, run a fundraising programme for children in Africa, and held positions in different university societies and bodies. 

Maksim Karliuk, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Maksim Karliuk studied International and European Law at the Belarussian State University, graduating later from the College of Europe, Bruges Campus with an LL.M in European Law. After having done a number of other studies on EU issues and public administration, he also worked at the OSCE office in Minsk as well as at the intensive Seminar on the EU at the College of Europe (Bruges). He is currently pursuing a fellowship at the Comenius University in Bratislava. His fields of interest involve RIA, legal approximation and legal transition, on which he participates in a number of projects. 

Maksim currently deals with Impact Assessments in Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. He contributes to the preliminary report and is in charge of the website.

François Lafarge, Researcher, ENA

François Lafarge is a fellow at the French National School of Administration. He specialized in public law (French, European, comparative and transnational) and in public management. His main research topics regard the evolution of legal forms of public activities according first to the growing managerial constraints and second the increase of European requirements. 

He holds a doctorate in law from the European University Institute where he was also a postdoctoral researcher. He has taught at several universities and public administration schools in Europe and the United States. He is also a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg where he teaches French administrative law, European administrative law and public management. He co-directs the permanent study group "Law and Administration" of the European Group of Public Administration and is associate editor of the Revue française d’administration publique. His recent publications cover European administrative law, executive and regulatory agencies, administrative cooperation and review of public policies.

Line Friis Lindner, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Line Friis Lindner  holds a MSc in Economics and European Studies from the University of Southern Denmark and a MA in European Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Europe, Poland. 

She is currently writing her PhD dissertation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria, on impact assessment in the EU and within the field of food safety policy in particular. In parallel with her studies, Line has been working on several EU-framework projects  as a research fellow. 

With a profound knowledge of and interest in RIA, public policy analysis, evaluation theory, sociology, and economics, within the Gutenberg Project Line is responsible for impact assessments in Denmark.

Margarida Matias-Bolze, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Margarida Matias-Bolzer has several years of public law experience within the EU administration. She currently works for the European External Action Service as a climate change expert, she formerly worked as a British MEP adviser in the European Parliament and prior to that she served as a legal adviser at the European Commission representation to the United Nations in New York. 

Margarida holds a LLM magna cum laude from the University of Leuven and an MA in European Diplomacy from the College of Europe in Bruges. 

Margarida is responsible for the collection of IA data and reporting for Portugal. She is fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish with a working knowledge of German.

Konstantina Manika, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Konstantina Manika has a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the University of Aristotle of Thessaloniki, Greece. As a member of the bar of Larisa, Greece, she is now preparing a Master 2 in “Public Contracts and Markets” in the Law Faculty Robert Schuman at the University of Strasbourg, France. 

Konstantina is in charge of Impact Assessments in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Macedonia. She contributes to the preliminary report, to the project website as well as to the administrative coordination of the team.

Katja Peček

Katja studied Law at the University of Ljubljana. She holds LL.M. in international Maritime Law from The IMO International Maritime Law Institute in Malta and LL.M. from King’s College London where she specialized in EU Competition Law, EU External Relations, Investment Law and International Commercial Arbitration. She is a member of Slovenian Bar.

During her career Katja has worked as diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Slovenia, dealing with consular protection and during the Slovenian Presidency of the EU she co-chaired working group of the Council of the EU on consular cooperation and crisis management (COCON) and was a member of the OSCE mission in Kazakhstan. As a lawyer she has worked for the two biggest domestic law firms, as well as for one of the very few international law firms in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  Katja was a judicial clerk at the Higher Court of Ljubljana and a stagiaire at the Court of the European Union in Luxembourg in the Cabinet of Judge dr. Marko Ilešič, President of the 3rd Senate. She is currently a senior associate at Law Firm Fatur, a boutique law firm in Ljubljana, Slovenia specialized in commercial and EU law. 

Within this project, Katja is responsible for the impact assessments in Slovenia.

Thomas Perroud, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

After graduating from HEC and Sciences Po (Paris), Thomas achieved two PhDs in Law from the Sorbonne Law School and the University of Warwick, on top of receiving an MPhil. He is currently a postdoctoral student at Sciences Po Paris, working on the codification of French administrative procedure. He specializes in comparative and European administrative law. 

Thomas works for the Gutenberg Chair as a researcher on French and Spanish law on impact assessments. He also contributes to the drafting of the preliminary report.

Laure Pubert, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Laure Pubert, PhD in Public Law, University of Strasbourg, 2009, has worked as a research fellow at the Center for Expertise and Research on Public Sector Administration (CERA) of the ENA (National School of Administration in France) and is now Research Fellow in Human Rights, Law and Religion for the Joint Research Unit PRISME (Politics, Law and Religion in Europe)/SDRE (Society, Law and Religion in Europe) - CNRS/University of Strasbourg. Her research interests include the effective defence of human rights before European institutions, the system of the European Convention on Human Rights, a critical approach to Children’s Rights, Children’s Right to Freedom of Religion, Comparative Administrative and Regulatory Law, notably using in these fields a mixed method approach combining legal analysis with more quantitative and qualitative research methods. 

Laure is in charge of Impact Assessments in France and Spain and contributes to the drafting of the preliminary report.

Stefano Quadro, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Stefano lives in Brussels, where he works for an organization representing Italian cooperative societies operating in various economic fields. He monitors the activity of the EU institutions and he defends the interests of the cooperatives liaising also with their European organizations. After studying Political Science at the University of Turin and at the University of Siena, he received a Master’s degree in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe (Bruges) with a thesis on the role played by impact assessment in the EU legislative process. Stefano is also very interested in EU budgetary issues, on which he had the chance to work extensively during a traineeship within the European Commission’s Directorate - General for Budget. Stefano will work with Rossella Chiodo, dealing with interviews and consultation with the private sector.

Stefano speaks Italian, English, French and is now learning Dutch. 

Cristina Sandu, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Cristina has a Bachelor’s degree in Administrative Sciences, specialisation European administration, as well as a Master's degree in Administrative Sciences, specialisation European Public Space, from the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania.

Cristina is a PhD Student in Administrative Sciences, NSPSPA, Bucharest, and a beneficiary of the "Doctoral Scholarships for a Sustainable Society" Project, a project co-financed by the European Union through the European Social Fund, Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources and Development 2007-2013. 
Her research interests for her PhD thesis include European approach on social enterprise, European models of social enterprise and social enterprise in public sector development. 

She was a beneficiary of Erasmus Student Mobility for Placements at European Public Law Organisation and she followed the courses of Academy of European Public Law, Athens, Greece.

Anna Szlaszynska, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Anna Szlaszynska holds a Master’s degree in political science from the University of Nicolas Copernic in Torun in Poland. She graduated from the College of Europe in Bruges where she was awarded a Master's degree in European Political and Administrative Studies. She also studied in France at the University of Jules Verne in Amiens (Faculty of Law and Political Science) in the framework of the Erasmus program. 

Anna has almost two years of professional experience in legal matters. In 2010 she was a trainee in the European Commission’s DG Justice, namely in the Consumer and Marketing Law Unit. Over 2011 she worked for the Polish Presidency in the Council of the EU in the Institutional and Legal Section of the Permanent Representation of Poland to the EU in Brussels. Her Presidency experience continues. Currently she works for the Cyprus Presidency in the Council of the EU as a team expert dealing with the Staff Regulations of the EU officials.

Her fields of interest are: regulatory policy in the EU, decision and policy making procedures, protection of consumer rights, interest representation in the EU, in particular in the area of consumer and business policy. 

Besides native Polish, Anna is fluent in English and French and currently is learning German.

Vincenzo Termine, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

After having completed his MSc in Economics at the Universita Bocconi in Milan, Italy, Vincenzo took part in a double degree programme at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Sciences Po in Paris. Following his graduation, he started working as an accountant for KPMG in Milan. In 2011, he joined the CERGAS research centre at the University of Bocconi in Milan where he deepened his knowledge related to healthcare management and innovation. His main fields of interest involve international relations and diplomacy. 

He currently works at the ENA for the Gutenberg chair, specialising in the content of Impact Assessments and the legal frameworks concerning RIA in Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium, the EU, Malta and the EU Commission. He is also in charge of the general coordination of the team (with Ioannis Lianos), contributing to the drafting of the preliminary report and is a member of the research design team.

Mihaela Tuca, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Mihaela is a PhD student (2010) in administrative sciences.

She holds a Master (I) in European Public Space, program of the National School of Political and Administrative Science, Bucharest, Romania as well as a Master (II) in Management of the EU’s Structural Funds, program of the Economical Studies Academy, Bucharest, Romania.

In 2008, Mihaela was an intern in the internship program of the European Public Law Academy in Athens, Greece.

She is currently a teaching assistant at the National School of Political and Administrative Science, Bucharest, Romania.

Polina Vaklin, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Polina Vaklin performs the research covering the RIAs in Republic of Bulgaria. Polina Vaklin graduated from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in 2001-2007 as Master of Law. She obtained a Diploma in Introduction in English and European Law and Institutions from University of Cambridge during 2004-2006. From 2002 until 2006 she was awarded with the“St. St. Cyril and Methodius” Foundation Scholarship for Intellectual Property law provided by “Dr. Ilko Eskenazi” Memorial Fund and developed yearly based researches on Intellectual property law development in Bulgaria.

Polina Vaklin’s current position is a corporate legal adviser since 2007. She is preparing a PhD in Administrative Law, focused on Tax Law.

Stijn van Voorst, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

Stijn van Voorst performs the research covering the RIAs in the Netherlands. 
He studied Public Administration at the Radboud University Nijmegen, graduating Cum Laude in Oktober 2012. Currently, he works at the same university as a research and education assistant and awaits the possibility of starting a PhD project about the implementation of European rules by municipalities. 

He wrote his masterthesis about the quality of European legislative evaluations, and is currently translating it to an English paper. Furthermore, he has been involved in workshops about European governance for Bachelor students and has assisted research about the European Union at the Radboud University during the academic year of 2011-2012. 

Grzegorz Wolszczak, Researcher, Gutenberg Project

The fellow research position for the Gutenberg Project complements Grzegorz’s engagement with the public sector (the PM’s chancellery in Poland) and academic research in the field of political-economy. He holds master degrees in European Studies and Public Policy, respectively from Aalborg University (Aalborg, Denmark) and Hertie School of Governance (Berlin, Germany) and has a background in political science and law (the USA, Poland).

Grzegorz specializes in public management (organizational change and regulation) and has a strong interest in statistics and anti-corruption. He would like to contribute to a wider application of analytical tools in the decision making process in the public sector as well as to smoothen public administration reforms leading to a more sustainable and efficient public service. In the current project he handles impact assessments in Germany.

Jun Zhou, Ph.D, Research Fellow, Gutenberg Project

Jun Zhou, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Economics Department of Bonn University, Germany. His research interest is on European competition policy and regulation. His recent empirical work focuses on the effectiveness of the EU competition policies in destabilizing and deterring cartels. His recent theoretical work concerns the effects of post-agreement communication on cartel stability.  Jun has participated in and led a number research projects for governments and authorities on the impacts of their policies and on the optimal design of regulations. In 2008, Jun  drafted the winning tender proposal and delivered expert report for the UK Office of Fair Trading to assess the impact of the UK antitrust penalty regime. From 2008 to 2009, Jun conducted analysis for the European Commission on the cost and benefit of various European mortgage market policies. In 2009, together a group of economists, Jun consulted the UK National Audit Office on strategies for enforcing tax compliance in the UK during the recession. He will be working on the quantitative and empirical design aspects of the Gutenberg project.

What do we do?

The project

The main goal of the project is to portray and analyse the development of the use of Impact Assessments throughout the European Union as a standard of good governance and, in some cases, as a legal standard which imposes constraints on the administrative action, regulatory or legislative actions.

Admittedly, this tool has long been used and known especially in the field of environmental law and the idea is not foreign to the use of economic record in a number of areas of public economic law.

Impact assessment forms inherent part of the rise of the “Better Regulation” movement in Europe and the adoption of a number of tools with the aim to measure (Standard Cost Model) and reduce administrative burdens (OECD, 1997; Hampton, 2005) or to evaluate the impact of public policies.

The proposed research project aims to examine in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective the implementation of impact assessment in the European Union (EU) and Member States of the EU.

• First, part of the research will focus on the analysis of national experiences, not so much from the point of view of institutional design but from the point of view of the variables taken into account in the various RIAs and their respective weight. The objective of this research will be to understand the wider political context that might influence the methodological design of impact assessment and its effective implementation by the different administrative bureaucracies.
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• A second angle that will also be explored in the study is the impact of RIA in the decision-making process. This will also include courts, which have increasingly been assessing individual regulatory decisions adopted on the basis of cost benefit analysis or impact assessment.
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• A third angle, which has not yet been examined in the literature, is the implementation of impact assessment at the local level and, in particular, the role of impact assessment in the devolution or decentralisation process in some Member States of the EU.
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• Finally, a fourth angle of the research will be the study of the legalisation of RIA, with some Member States adopting formal and binding requirements of impact assessment. We will focus on the impact of this legalisation of RIA on the evolution of RIA to a technique not only aiming to manage public action but to perform a transformative role in the re-conceptualization of the role of the State.

Research questions

Several Member States have already adopted or are in the process of implementing impact assessment schemes as prerequisites for different forms of state action However, there has not been yet any comprehensive empirically based study of the institution, operation and impact of these schemes in Europe as this has been the case in the United States the last 20 years.

The first part of the research project will therefore be a mapping exercise, conducted by the principal investigator and his team eventually assisted by a network of researchers in other Member States and candidate countries. A particular effort will be made to develop links with the specific administrative units that perform these impact assessments.

After the elaboration of a website database dedicated to the identification of all existing texts or practices of cost benefit analysis and impact assessment in Europe, the research team will then analyse the data with regard to specific questions/issues, such as (1) the identification of different types of impact assessment (cost benefit analysis, regulatory impact assessment, cost-effectiveness, risk-risk assessment…) and the differences of approach between them ; (2) the procedure of the assessment, (3) the authority or authorities entrusted with the implementation of the scheme, (3) the areas in which they may apply, (4) the different issues covered by the impact assessment (such as social and environmental policy concerns, competition assessment…), (4) the elaboration of specific techniques to quantify costs and benefits, (6) the implications of the institution of impact assessment for the decentralisation of the regulatory state and for collaborative governance with the private sector, (7) the role of impact assessment or cost benefit analysis in the decision making process...

The results of this comparison, which will also include the preparation of comparative tables, of a typology of impact assessment procedures and an analysis of some selected case studies, will be posted on the website and a provisional report will be prepared for each of these issues.

The knowledge acquired will be particularly useful for the further elaboration of issues such as the philosophical foundations of cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment, the necessity to elaborate tools that take into account the broadest variety of preferences and considerations (distributive justice, environmental concerns…), the elaboration of a specific political oversight of this tool, the necessity to develop specific mechanisms that will enhance the judicial oversight of these decision procedures and the protection of individual rights.

The second part of the research project will reflect on regulatory impact assessments and cost benefit analysis in an international context. The emergence of these decisional procedures in jurisdictions outside Europe, such as the United States and at the international level will be examined in detail.

The research project will compare different experiences and institutional settings and will identify a certain number of best practices. While the first steps of the research project will focus on European administrative and regulatory law regimes, the focus will be here on the emergence of a global administrative law setting for impact assessment, in particular a common language that could enhance administrative cooperation between countries with different regulatory cultures.

The third part of the research project will examine the judicial review of cost benefit analysis/impact assessment by specialized and generalist courts. The focus will be on the impact of impact assessments on the normative “life” of the texts adopted, in particular, but not exclusively, their review by courts.

Expected results

This project constitutes the first serious effort of examining the implementation of impact assessment techniques in the European Union and in all the member States of the European Union. It integrates a legal, a political science and an economic perspective. The aim is to generate empirical knowledge on the way the different forms of impact assessment operate in Europe, their impact on the relations between the different political actors and to provide a robust theory explaining and predicting their integration in the European political and legal systems.

The results of this research project were presented and discussed in an international conference that took place in Paris in June 2013 , bringing together academics, public officials in charge of cost benefit analysis and impact assessment (such as members of the Office of Management and Budget in the US, of the Impact Assessment Board in the EU, national offices, the OECD), administrative law judges, business representatives and others.

Some of the first results of this work were published in French by the prestigious Revue Française d’Administration Publique edited by ENA in June 2014 (available here: http://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-d-administration-publique-2014-1.htm) and further publications in English are also currently prepared.

For a summary of the first results of the Gutenberg project, you may consult the CLES research paper 1/2014 available here. A further conference on this topic is scheduled for the summer of 2015.

Database

We are currently developing a searchable database to publicise our findings. 

Please bear with us; the database will be published here once it has been finalised.

Events

Theory and Practice of Regulatory Impact Assessments in Europe: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspective.
Monday 10 June 2013
Venue: Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) in Paris, France

Visit the event's Eventbrite page to find out more.