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 September 2024, we organised a study visit in Brussels for participants of the EU Environment Academy, providing hands-on insights into the EU’s environmental governance.
- In July 2024, we supported the Regional Managing Authority of North-East Romania with two key activities, including a study visit in Rome for stakeholders in research, development, and innovation, focusing on best practices in EU funding programmes such as ESI and the RRF.
- In May 2024, EIPA hosted Serbian students for a study visit, facilitated by the Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA), to bridge the gap between academic training and real-world public administration. Over two days, participants took part in training on EU cooperation and visited the University of Maastricht and UNU-Merit.
- 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.
