GUIDANCE LAB

The Guidance Lab is a space to connect academics and practitioners, as a ready-to-go guidance from the research community for the policy practitioners, to inform decision making in the implementation of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) with support based on scientific evidence translated into a set of actionable policy guidelines.  

Given the similarities between Cohesion Policy and the NRRP in terms of objective, governance and scope of action, we translate the broad scientific evidence generated within the Cohesion Policy literature into a set of actionable configurations for the development of policy pathways (in terms of actions, governance, beneficiaries, territories, modalities and management procedures) that are more likely to trigger a successful  NRRP by overcoming fragile nodes and avoiding problematic hotspots throughout its implementation chain. 

We formulate different sections, focusing on the different categories of relevant objectives and missions of the NRRPs (e.g. digital transition), and on the characteristics of the territories (e.g. weakest areas) in which the NRRP operates. 

We draw on the growing body of works that identifies the ‘net’ contribution of Cohesion Policy by comparing the policy outcome of the ‘treated’ units with the one of a ‘counterfactual’ group of units. This type of analysis cleanses the measurement of the policy impact from the effect that other possible confounding factors might play on the outcome variable, by using different statistical methods (regression discontinuity design; propensity score matching; difference-in-difference and synthetic control are among the main ones).  

Based on the evidence produced by such analyses, we provide guidance on what works - under what conditions - where - with whom, in order to define rapid and forward-looking suggestions for the implementation of the NRRP. 

Hence, each section of the Guidance Lab includes a review of the existing scientific evidence on Cohesion Policy that is relevant for the context of interest (e.g. weakest areas) and a final section with lessons and actionable measures for the implementation of the NRRP in that context. 

The Guidance Lab isn't a static tool: we see it as a shared, ever-expanding space. It aims to represent a platform, to be constantly updated by the whole community of researchers, which is potentially useful in informing the implementation of the NRRP. The Lab can also contribute to support a culture of rigorous evaluation within the Public Administration entitled of the NRRP implementation, creating new demand for causal evaluation and acting as a catalyst for the translation of the existing evidence in the decision-making process. 

Any recommendations on relevant new or existing work, or on the formulation of evidence-based lessons and actionable measures, are more than welcome: please use our contacts to contribute to the Lab!