About MIDAS

Background

Models are stylized representations of the real world used to assess the behaviour of a system under specific (policy) assumptions. They can provide support to policy makers throughout the policy cycle and across a wide range of policy areas.

In Impact assessments, models are extensively used to determine baseline scenario(s) and assess the environmental, economic, and social impacts of the proposed policy options. 16% of all Commission impact assessments carried out in the years 2003-2018 were supported by models, growing to 25-30% of impact assessments from 2015 onwards (source: Acs et al (2019) ).

MIDAS, the Modelling Inventory and Knowledge Management System of the European Commission, documents these models and their contributions to Commission impact assessments (source: Ostlaender et al (2019) ). It describes a model's purpose and intended use, provides information on model structure, quality and transparency, as well as access to model documentation, useful references and the supported impact assessments. With this, MIDAS enhances the transparency of these models and the traceability of their results. It also facilitates the understanding of impact assessments performed by the Commission.

MIDAS is developed and managed by the European Commission Competence Centre on Modelling (CC-MOD) . Further information is available on the Knowledge for policy webpage .

Content

MIDAS includes Commission impact assessments supported by models published starting from July 2017, in accordance with what is requested by the better regulation  Guidelines and associated ‘Toolbox’ (SWD (2017) 350). Focussing on models contributing to the ex-ante assessment of policy options, MIDAS currently includes 87 impact assessments and 65 models. Please check the glossary for all details and definitions.

The information provided in MIDAS complements the one included in the impact assessment report.

For some of the models included in MIDAS, the KnowSDGs   web platform provides further information on how they can contribute to the analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

EuroGEOSS

MIDAS collaborated with JRC.T.1 and JRC.D.2 on a project (TIDE-EuroGEOSS) to develop a proof of concept interactive web application  to enable the execution of the GREEN model. In describing the GREEN model’s contribution to the impact assessment on urban wastewater treatment  MIDAS can now direct the user to this web application where they can replicate the model run, change parameters such as time period, select different regions of interest and compare the results for the different scenarios identified in the impact assessment. Applications such as these greatly enhance the transparency of models and reflect the European Commission’s commitment to open and transparent decision-making.