We are the EU Policy Lab
The EU Policy Lab is a space for cross-disciplinary exploration and innovation in policymaking. We apply collaborative, systemic and forward-looking approaches to help bringing the scientific knowledge of the Joint Research Centre into EU policymaking.
We experiment with the new, the unprecedented and the unknown. We seek to augment our understanding of the present, challenge and reinvent the way we think about the future.
The EU Policy Lab is also a mindset and a way of working together that combines stories and data, anticipation and analysis, imagination and action. We bring new practical and radical perspectives to tackle complex problems in a collaborative way. Together, we explore, connect and ideate to create better policies.
Foresight
Foresight explores long-term futures and creates shared visions for policymaking.
Our lab supports EU policymaking by providing strategic and future-oriented input, developing an anticipatory culture inside the European Commission, continuously experimenting and developing different methods and tools to make foresight practically useful for decision-making processes.
Design for Policy
Design is the creative catalyst of innovation in policymaking.
In our lab we use design to research and gain insight into the problem, to create and test alternative solutions and to collaborate and co-create with policymakers, scientists and stakeholders all along the process.
Behavioural insights
We generate behavioural insights through an empirical approach, gathering contributions from various behavioural sciences.
Our Lab uses behavioural insights to support EU policymaking by identifying behavioural elements in policies and testing behavioural levers to increase policy effectiveness.
Our latest posts
Some exciting news from our project to harmonise waste sorting labels across the EU!
Over the last few months the EU Policy Lab, together with consortium leader Open Evidence and the behavioural design agency Krukow, have developed a prototype for harmonised waste sorting labels.
What would you do if your employment contract required you to wear a device that measured your attention levels, compared your remote working attention with that in the office and made suggestions about when you should take breaks?
On 21 September, the EU Policy Lab had the honour of hosting an event on the topic of Risks on the Horizon at the UN Summit of the Future in New York. The event focused on the role of foresight in the field of risk management.
In a world where the only constant is change, policymakers are faced with an accelerating pace of global shifts, uncertainty and unforeseen events that make long-term planning impossible.
Futures Garden is an experimental project of the Joint Research Centre’s EU Policy Lab to generate new policy ideas with citizens and policymakers to help shape a better future for Europe. We are now proud to announce the public launch of two innovative ‘artefacts from the future’.
Our regular readers may remember the launch of our ambitious design and behavioural insights projects aiming to Harmonising waste sorting labels across the EU (europa.eu). And we’ have been busy.