Impact Assessment in the European Union: Lessons from a Research Project

In this article, we present some major lessons drawn from a recently completed research project. Our research dealt with ex ante evaluation, mainly impact assessment (IA). We shed new light on research questions about the control of bureaucracy, the role of IA in decision-making, economics and policy learning, and the narrative dimension of appraisal. We identify how our findings stand in relation to conventional arguments about these issues, and reflect on their normative implications. We finally reason on the possible extensions of our arguments to the wider field of policy evaluation, connecting IA and ex post evaluation.