Evaluation and Evidence Policy Forum:
In 2025, EES partnered with RAND Europe to identify evidence and evidence gaps for ways of boosting health systems productivity in Europe. See the November 2025 Paper here.
In 2026, partnering with Frontier Economics, our focus is on the transport sector and its efforts to transition to net zero. This is another highly topical issue to consider through our lens of improving the use of evidence to inform policy, and our intention to bring those who generate evidence closer to decision-makers. This is relevant across all sectors – we focus on the transport sector in this series, as an example.
There will be three sessions – the first two are free and online, with a focus on the available evidence: June 9th and 11th 2026; the third will be in person, with a focus on evidence and policymakers at the EES Conference, Lille, France, in late October 2026.
Upcoming Events
The Forum will provide a synthesis of the evidence and issues arising at the end of the series.
Session 1:
Modal Matters in European Transport: Evaluating Freight Shifts for a Net Zero Future
Date: Tue 09 June 2026
Time: 13:00 BST/ 14:00 CEST / ⏱ 90 minutes
Price: Free to attend
Venue: Online via Zoom
Chair: José Carbajo, EES, Co-Lead Evidence and Evaluation Policy Forum
Event Details
As part of the evidence to policy series on the transport sector’s transition to net zero, we are looking at freight transport.
Freight transport accounts for a substantial share of European transport emissions, with road freight dominating modal share. The EU’s ambitions include doubling rail freight by 2050, expanding inland waterways and short sea shipping, strengthening TEN-T corridors.
A review of evidence identifies several strong clusters where there has been evaluation: Switzerland’s performance-related heavy vehicle fee (LSVA), road pricing, operating subsidies (Austria, UK, Italy) and Corridor-level infrastructure (Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), Gotthard Base Tunnel)
This session will discuss the available evidence on pushing for greater decarbonisation in freight transport. This will include comparing pricing, subsidy and infrastructure approaches, and it will also identify evidence gaps for policy-makers.
Speakers
Professor Lóránt Tavasszy is Professor of Freight Transport and Logistics at Delft University of Technology and a leading expert in freight modelling and logistics systems. His research spans urban, national, and global freight transport, with a strong focus on multimodal systems and policy-relevant modelling. He leads the Freight & Logistics Lab at TU Delft and is actively involved in international research and policy advisory networks on sustainable freight transport.
Dr Elżbieta Głowicka is a Director and senior competition economist with extensive experience across economic consulting, EU policy, and academia. She specialises in the ex-post evaluation of State aid, including for railways, banking, environmental protection, and energy, and has led international evaluation teams for DG Competition. Her work combines rigorous economic analysis with policy evaluation, offering important insights into how regulatory frameworks influence transport markets and modal shift.
Mr Guido Fara is a Senior Auditor at the European Court of Auditors, having led teams on performance audits related to EU investment, cohesion, and transport. He has contributed to major audit reports on high-speed rail and public-private partnerships, and brings direct evaluation experience from the European Court of Auditors’ work on intermodal freight transport. His perspective provides valuable insights into the effectiveness and implementation of EU-supported transport policies.
Further details and how to book
For full details of this first event and to book your place, click here.
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Session 2 :
Modal Matters in European Transport: Evaluating Passenger Shifts on the Road to Net Zero
Date: Thurs 11 June 2026
Time: 13:00 BST/ 14:00 CEST / ⏱ 90 minutes
Price: Free to attend
Venue: Online via Zoom
Chair: Catherine Galano, Executive Director, Head of Paris Office, Frontier Economics
Event Details
The European Green Deal and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy set ambitious objectives to shift passenger transport away from high-emission modes (private car, short-haul aviation) toward lower-emission alternatives (rail, public transport, cycling, walking). Yet progress remains uneven and, in many Member countries across Europe, too slow.
The evidence review underpinning this event highlights:
- Strong evidence clusters in certain areas (congestion charging, parking pricing, cycling infrastructure, bus priority corridors)
- More limited or short-term evidence for fare reductions and integrated ticketing
- Significant evaluation gaps concerning:
- Long-term behavioural retention
- Distributional impacts
- Transferability beyond dense urban contexts
- Robust counterfactual designs
While many passenger modal shift policies are politically visible and widely replicated, fewer are backed by strong causal evidence on sustained emissions impact.
Speakers
Professor Greg Marsden is Professor of Transport Governance at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds. His research examines how governance structures and policy design influence sustainable transport outcomes and behavioural change. He has extensive experience evaluating transport interventions, including those aimed at reducing energy demand and supporting place-based decarbonisation. Through major UK research programmes, he explores integrated technological and social transitions in mobility systems. His work brings a strong evaluation perspective to understanding what drives effective and durable modal shift.
Professor Maria Börjesson is Professor of Economics at VTI, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute and an Adjunct Professor at Linköping University, specialising in transport economics and public policy design. Her research focuses on how pricing, taxation, infrastructure investment, and regulatory measures shape transport systems and behavioural responses. She has produced extensive empirical evidence on modal choice, climate impacts, and cost-efficient pathways to achieve transport decarbonisation targets. Her recent work includes advanced modelling of travel behaviour and policy impacts using large-scale data. She brings a rigorous analytical perspective on the effectiveness and distributional impacts of modal shift policies across Europe.
Dr. Camilo Franco is an expert in transport and environment at the Climate Neutrality, Energy and Mobility Unit in the European Environmental Agency (EEA). He is responsible for the annual report on the sustainability of EU’s mobility systems 2025, under the Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism, monitoring the trends and outlook for the transport sector on specific topics such as activity and demand, energy use and infrastructure, GHG emissions and air/noise pollution. He has extensive expertise in evidence-based assessment, linking research, policy, and progress towards climate and energy targets.
Further details and how to book
For full details of this second event and to book your place, click here.
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Session 3 :
Tackling transport decarbonisation in Europe – role of evidence and evaluation in policy-making
Date: Late October 2026 (exact details tbc)
Time: 90 minutes (exact timings tbc)
Venue: EES Conference in Lille, France
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Previous EEF Events
EEF Series:
Series 1:
Theme: Evidence for Policy-Making – Addressing the Health Sector Productivity Challenge in Europe
Partner: RAND Europe
Format: Two online sessions (completed) + one hybrid event (completed)
This pilot series focuses on a critical issue for European public policy: increasing productivity in the health sector, with attention to innovation and workforce systems. Each session is grounded in a policy briefing prepared by RAND Europe, highlighting key challenges and synthesizing available evidence.
📄 Briefing Note December 2025
Evidence for Policy-Making – Addressing the Health Sector Productivity Crisis in Europe
The EES Evidence and Evaluation Forum (EEF), in partnership with RAND Europe, has produced a briefing note capturing the evidence collected during the Forum, alongside reflections on key lessons emerging from the process.
You can access the briefing note here online.
If you have further thoughts or reflections after reading the briefing note, please contact Tom Ling at tling@randeurope.org.
🎬 Recent Sessions – Now Available to Watch
The first two sessions were held in July 2025, marking the launch of the Forum.
Session 1 – Promoting innovation to strengthen health productivity in Europe
📅 15 July 2025
🎤 Speakers:
- Professor Anita Charlesworth, CBE, co-chair of the Health Foundation’s Commission on NHS productivity and acting chair of North-West London NHS Integrated Care Board and
- Karen Taylor. IPFA, OBE, Director Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions
- 🗣️ Discussant:
- Riccardo Polastro, Chief Evaluation Officer at World Health Organization WHO
📺 Click here to watch the recording
Session 2 – Boosting workforce productivity in Europe
📅 22 July 2025
🎤 Speakers:
- Federico Pratellesi, Policy Analyst in the OECD Health Division
- Reinhard Busse, Dr. med. MPH, Director and Head of the Berlin hub of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.
- 🗣️ Discussant:
Professor Ellen Nolte: Professor of HS and Systems Research - 📺 Click here to watch the recording
Session 3 – Increasing health sector productivity in Europe: insights from policymakers:European Commission, WHO and OECD
📅 8 October 2025
🎤 Speakers:
- Mr. Dirk van den Steen Acting Head of Unit at DG SANTE at European Commission
- Dr. Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems at WHO
- Ms. Francesca Colombo, Head of the Health Division at OECD
- 📺Click here to watch the recording
What Comes Next
A new EEF series on a different public policy issue is currently in development and will take place in 2026. Stay tuned for updates.
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