The Institute for Impact Assessment and Scientific Evaluation of Policy and Legislation

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Peer review is a key element of the Impact Assessment Institute's study procedures.  All studies are exposed to peer review, with the nature and timing dependent on the type of study.

 

The general rule is that studies are initially sent to the organisations with a direct interest in the dossier under scrutiny requesting their expert feedback. This includes in most cases the European Commission, relevant interest associations and non-governmental organisations working in the policy area.  After a suitable period of review, the study is updated according to any newly gathered knowledge and then published on the IAI website for public review.

 

Where time is of the essence, specifically for studies scrutinising E.U. legislative proposals, peer review for interest groups and the public peer review will commence at the same time in order to align to the legislative procedure (in most cases the ordinary legislative procedure).  Revisions according to new knowledge are published as soon as possible.

 

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Guidelines for peer review

 

Peer review is a process to ensure that the IAI work is informed with the most accurate and up-to-date technical and policy information relevant to the dossiers it is studying.  The peer review is the formal opportunity to gather this information.  Therefore factual, technical and scientific information is requested from reviewers.  As a summary, the reviews are expected to have the following characteristics:

• Factual, technical and scientific information relevant to the dossier and specifically responding to the draft IAI study, without policy orientation

• Timely - within the set deadline where possible

• Written input in general, with face-to-face meetings to take place only where essential and if agreed that they can be transparently reported