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 policy-making.
Our lab supports EU policy-making 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 policy-making by identifying behavioural elements in policies and testing behavioural levers to increase policy effectiveness.
Our latest posts
Driving forward with cleaner energy
The Living Lab for Testing Digital Energy Solution (DES-Lab) in collaboration with the EU Policy Lab coordinates an experimental project using nine electric-vehicles charging stations at the JRC in Ispra. Unlike other charging stations, this project supplies each station with electricity produced by
The future of Europe: what do you imagine it will look like?
A portrait of how EU citizens imagine their futures; analysis of stories collected by #OurFutures
Future of Government 2030+
The role and form of government are changing. Identifying requirements for future governments allows us to rethink their structures and processes and explore what they might look like in the future.
Farmers of the Future
The aim of the study is to identify possible future professional roles of farmers in 2040 and to explore potential implications for relevant EU policies. The study will combine different methodological approaches and is exploratory in nature
Last Bootcamp of DLT4EU Accelerator: DLT-solutions for public and social sector soon ready
The Bootcamp of the DLT4EU programme, a major milestone in this Accelerator programme supported by the DLT4Good project, with focus on the use of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) in social and public sectors
The Canvas for Social Economy, a design method for regenerative economies.
The Social Economy Canvas is a visual sense making framework inspired by design and by complex-adaptive systems theory. It intends to provide policymakers with an ongoing, bottom-up, macro-assessment of social economy in Europe