As part of the Science Meet Regions Initiative, the JRC (Joint Research Centre) has been developing a "Work with Evidence" training course on evidence-informed policymaking, designed to improve policymakers' competencies by zooming in on specific policy fields relevant to local and regional authorities.

After three pilot runs, the JRC will be delivering the final material in an online format.

The course is based on the "working with evidence" cluster of the EC competence model for policymakers. It is built around critical skills in this area, from understanding policy problems and identifying needs to gathering and assessing evidence. It comprises offline self-paced learning and in-classroom sessions, which take 12 hours spread across three days.

The sessions will be taking place on the following dates:

• 22-23-24 November 2023 (AM)
• 5-6 December  2023 (PM) and 7 December 2023 (AM).

The registration form can be found here.

Science meets regions

The JRC brings science to Europe’s regions to enhance evidence-informed policymaking. The Science meets Regions project aims to:

• Adopt a clearer and strategic focus on topics of relevance to regions and cities, which are in line with the Commission policy priorities;
• Fill the gap in the EU instruments addressing evidence-informed policymaking, which target mainly the national authorities and do not foresee any networking initiative to share practices, methods and instruments for Evidence Informed Policy Making (EIPM) at local and regional levels.

Science meets Regions primarily addresses topics in line with the Commission policy priorities:

• European Green Deal
• Digital transition
• Promoting an economy that works for people
• Enhancing European democracy
• Promoting the European way of life

The project adopted a bottom-up approach. The cities, regions and territories who participated in the project took full ownership of the topic and the process. 

Source: ERRIN & European Commission