FP7 tailored for sustainability
Tools (Indicators and Impact Assessment Tools)
222 Kb]. These instruments are used to support decision-making by assessing and continuously measuring the impact of its policies.Sustainable Development Impact Assessment Tools
Indeed, article 11 of the EU SDS reaffirms the importance of impact assessment, where the social, environmental and economic dimension of a policy initiative are assessed in a balanced way, taking into account the external dimension and the cost of inaction. A range of practical tools to support informed decision-making has been developed under the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes for research. They include modelling and simulation software, accounting frameworks and codes of practice, as well as impact assessment, performance monitoring and external cost estimation tools. But new topics arise on the political agenda and the implementation of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) sub-activity 6.4.2.1 "Assessment tools for sustainable development" will continuously support coherent and informed policy-making.
Relevant projects
Sustainability A-Test is about assessment tools used to assess a policy's contribution to sustainable development.
MATISSE aims to achieve a step-wise advance in the science and application of Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) of EU policies.
SENSOR deals with sustainability impact assessment tools for environmental, social and economic effects of multifunctional land-use in European regions.
MODELS aims to support the European Commission services to operate advanced computer-based economic modelling tools in order to perform comprehensive impact assessments of the policy agenda set for the Lisbon strategy.
Sustainable Development Indicators
The EU SDS foresees that the Commission will monitor the implementation of the Strategy [ 61 Kb] on the basis of a set of sustainable development indicators (article 33 ff). The current set of indicators allows one to measure the progress towards attaining the strategy's objectives. It is organised within 10 themes reflecting the political priorities of the renewed Strategy. The themes are further divided into sub-themes in order to reflect the main priorities of the EU SDS.
Additional research is needed to enhance the quality of these indicators and propose new ones. In the context of the 6th Framework Programme (FP6 – 2002-2006), projects examining the development and use of Sustainable Development Indicators were funded, notably, INDI-LINK and DECOIN. The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) provides further opportunities for research in this area, in particular Themes 6 (Environment) and 8 (Socio-economic sciences and the humanities).
Relevant projects
INDI-LINK aims at further improving EU Sustainable Development Indicators. It assesses the interlinkages between the different priorities of the renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy and derives policy conclusions for its implementation.
DECOIN deals with sustainable development indicators and the methodology of analyzing inter-linkages between different trends in the EU. It will be followed up by a project under FP7 called SMILE, which is currently being elaborated.