Glossary
Explanation of main concepts and content used in MIDAS
- Better regulation
- The European Commission better regulation policy is its main regulatory framework which concerns the development and review of laws and other policy instruments. As presented in the Better Regulation Agenda (COM/2015/0215 final), the framework is based on transparency, use of evidence and involvement of citizens and stakeholders. It covers all policy areas throughout the policy cycle and aims for targeted regulation that goes no further than required, in order to achieve objectives and bring benefits at minimum cost.
- Impact assessment
- In the EU better regulation framework, an impact assessment refers to an ex ante exercise to determine if future EU action is justified and how such action can best be designed to achieve desired policy objectives. The assessment is focused on expected economic, social or environmental impacts of a range of policy options.
- Model
A model can be defined as an analytical representation or quantification of a real-world system, used to make projections or to assess the behaviour of the system under specified conditions.
Usually models typically include :
- Inputs, i.e., underlying data
- Assumptions, which are represented as mathematical equations in programming language
- Outputs
- A specific spatial and temporal extent
- Specific use to explore a policy question
- The possibility to carry out uncertainty and sensitivity analysis
Therefore, we can consider as operational definition a “tool” that:
- Offers a representation of a real-world system
- Is able to assess its behaviour under specific assumptions, including policy assumptions
- Is computer-based
- Model contribution to an impact assessment
- In MIDAS, we distinguish four different roles that a model can play to support an impact assessment:
- supporting the problem definition
- providing evidence in ex post evaluation of relevant existing policies
- providing evidence for the baseline
- contributing to the assessment of the policy options
- Model licence
- In MIDAS, it is information about terms and conditions for use of the computer code underpinning a model; more specifically, it indicates whether the software is accessible and usable freely (open licence) or with certain restrictions (proprietary licence). It must be noted that although here we only distinguish these two types of licences, there are various degrees of restrictions in between an open and the strictest proprietary licences.
- Model domain
- A model domain refers to the main thematic area covered by the model, such as agriculture, economy or energy.
- Model ownership
- Model ownership is the information about the entity (or person) who holds the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), more specifically copyright, in the model and/or computer code underpinning it. The following are the options considered in MIDAS:
- EU ownership (European Commission)
- EU ownership (other than European Commission: e.g. European Parliament, European Central Bank, ...)
- EU agencies’ ownership
- Third-party ownership (commercial companies, Member States, other organisations, …)
- Co-ownership (EU & third parties)
- Public domain
- Other
- Model tags are used in the model description and are provided by modellers in a free form.
- Policy area
- Models are designed to contribute to EU policy areas like Agriculture, Environment, Trade... A model can be assigned one or more policy areas to indicate actual or potential uses of the model in support to policy.
- Policy cycle
- It refers to a circular process of policy development. In MIDAS, the potential use of the model in the policy cycle and the phases it can be used in are indicated. The phases are distinguished between anticipation (such as foresight and horizon scanning), formulation (such as impact assessments), implementation (inclusive of monitoring), evaluation (such as ex-post evaluation) and other (such as European Semester).
- Subject Matter
- Subject matter is a classification tool containing an alphabetically structured list of over 200 keywords. It is based on the subdivisions of the treaties and on the areas of activity of the institutions. The descriptors are less specific than those used in the directory code but provide a general overview of the content of the document. One document can be indexed by up to three subject-matter descriptors. Examples: Trans-European networks; Competition; Telecommunications