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.
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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
We've just launched the process to design the next EU Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness. Found out more about how we did it.
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Foresight
- Design for policy
- Behavioral insights
Foresight, it seems to be on everyone’s lips these days. But what is it exactly? And more importantly, how can policymakers use it in their daily work? This is why we designed a "menu" to help guide you through the options.
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Foresight
Complex (or ‘wicked’) problems require adaptive solutions. By failing to address the variables of human behaviour, the effectiveness of policies can also be reduced.
This is where Behavioural insights come in: to bridge this gap and uncover behavioural interlinkages often not considered in policy.
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Behavioral insights
How can the EU safeguard fairness and fundamental rights when AI is used for decision making?
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Design for policy
- Behavioral insights
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.
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Design for policy
- Behavioral insights
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?
- EU Policy Lab tags
- Foresight