Impact assessment (IA) is an ex-ante evaluation approach used in major legislative processes in the EU and other democracies. It aims to identify the most feasible, effective and efficient way forward to address problems in a particular policy area. In the EU, it is required for major legislation and spending programs, and is often conducted ‘back-to-back’ with an ex-post evaluation. In these cases, it combines the analysis of the shortcomings of existing legislation with the assessment of a set of distinct policy options to provide an evidence base for identifying the preferred option.
Impact assessment uses a distinct terminology rooted in the concept of evaluation and requires specific methodological approaches and steps. The starting point is the identification of key problems and their drivers. This process is continued by developing policy options, consulting stakeholders on them, identifying their likely impacts and assessing them quantitatively and qualitatively, often in the form of a cost-benefit analysis. It leads to the ranking of options and thereby to the identification of a preferred policy option.
This course introduces students to the practice of impact assessment in terms of concepts, methods, as well as its practice and the related challenges. While ex-post evaluation approaches have been the subject of a previous course and will therefore not be covered in depth here, we will summarise key evaluation concepts that are also essential for impact assessment, such as problem analysis, intervention logic and evaluation criteria, before going on to develop methodological elements specific to impact assessment, such as definition of options and baseline, analysis of impacts, assessment of costs and benefits, multi-criteria analysis and others. Based on group exercises, on the first day of the course we will develop a methodological approach for a specific impact assessment study, elaborate a set of policy options, identify potential types of impacts and conduct a stakeholder analysis. We will also look at relevant EU and UK guidance. On the second day, we will consider how to consult stakeholders and discuss qualitative and quantitative methods for impact analysis in the context of better regulation. We will discuss possible approaches for the assessment of costs (including the so-called Standard Cost Model, SCM), approaches for and challenges of assessing benefits, and ways of combining different aspects in a multi-criteria analysis.
By the end of the course, students taking the course will:
Understand the origin and practice of the concept of IA and how to conduct a problem analysis, define policy options and baseline, identify potential impacts and choose the preferred option.
Gain an insight into the most common qualitative and quantitative methods used in IA, such as literature reviews, interviews, stakeholder surveys, cost-benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis etc.
Apply elements of IA in a group exercise/role game.
Gain insight into the practical use of IA in policy development.
Understand the ethics of commissioning and conducting impact assessment studies, as well as potential pitfalls.
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