Study Visits
EIPA regularly organises study visits and programmes designed to provide public officials, policymakers, and professionals from the EU and beyond, with the opportunity to gain firsthand experience and insights into various aspects of European governance and public administration. We put together these visits and programmes for the European Commission, a Member State, or the participants’ country. Some programmes are singular projects, while others are part of a long-standing collaboration.
Recent examples include:
- In January 2023 we hosted representatives from DG REGIO at our office in Maastricht to explore initiatives in EU Cohesion and Public Administration for the benefit of Czechia and Slovakia.
- Our support for the capacity-building efforts of the Bulgarian Road Transport Agency, for which in 2022, we organised a study visit to the Italian Agency of Cohesion to reinforce the agency’s skills in managing European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Cohesion Fund (CF) projects in the road infrastructure sector.
- Between 2019 and 2020, The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) within the Local Administration Reform project (LAR III), tasked EIPA with three “learning journeys” in Spain, France, and Poland. This project was co-financed by the European Commission and conducted with the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation and the Ministry of the Interior.
- In 2019 we organised a ten-day ‘internship’ within the ‘Town Twinning between Turkey and the EU’ programme in which ten senior public officials from Turkish institutions: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both the Union of Municipalities and the Union of Provinces, and the Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation had the opportunity to acquire a solid combination of practical and theoretic knowledge on topical issues such as city-to-city cooperation schemes, city-to-EU participatory channels and relevant institutions, networks and partnerships for complying with EU policies and practices.
- The continuation of our long-standing cooperation with the Republic of Korea, for which in 2019 we organised six study visits to district and appeal courts in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The following study visits we set up for Turkish public officials illustrate how we tailor each programme to the specific needs of the particular public administration.
- In September 2018 the Brasov County Council from Romania came to EIPA in Maastricht for a 1-day study visit on the CAF Total Quality Management tool, and how to use this within an organisation.
