Library Reading room at the EP

The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) provides comprehensive research and analytical support to the Members of the European Parliament, its parliamentary committees and the European Parliament as a whole. The EPRS philosophy is to provide independent, objective and authoritative information. We aim to provide a comprehensive research and analysis capacity of the kind to be found in many parliamentary democracies worldwide. We always try to adapt our products to best meet the needs of the Members of the European Parliament. What suits their needs today, may be of low value for them tomorrow. Nevertheless, on this website you will come across certain standard products that have proved particularly valuable throughout the years. Each of them has a corresponding tag and treats a topic in a unique way.

If you are interested in receiving our monthly newsletter to the think tank and research community, which gathers links to a selection of our best publications from a given month, please send us an email to EPRS-StrategyCoordination(at)europarl.europa.eu.

Organisation

The EPRS was established on 1 November 2013, bringing together several analytical and support services for Members of the European Parliament and/or parliamentary committees. Today, the EPRS is organised in four Directorates and three horizontal units (Strategy and Innovation Unit, Linking the Levels Unit and Strategic Foresight and Capabilities Unit):

Members’ Research Service

Public opinion on the eve of the EP2014

The central task of the Members’ Research Service is to ensure that all Members of the European Parliament are provided with analysis of, and research on, policy issues relating to the European Union, in order to assist them in their parliamentary work.

Impact Assessment and European Added Value

Five services contribute to identifying the need for action at European level and provide scrutiny and oversight of EU legislation in practice. This Directorate is supported by research and analytical capacities in all areas of policy, drawing if necessary on outside expertise. It covers the following activities: Ex-Ante Impact Assessment, European Added Value, Ex-Post Impact Assessment, Policy Performance Appraisal, European Council Oversight and Scientific Foresight (STOA) unit.

Library and Knowledge Services

The Library provides on-site and online services, access to internal and external publications on European and national issues, and online access to news and information services. It also offers certain public services, in the form of the ‘Ask EP’ Service.

Resources

The Resource Directorate is one of the four directorates within DG EPRS and its most recent one. Its overarching objective is to assure an optimal resourcing of DG EPRS’ priorities, notably at times of increasing resource scarcity. The latter involves a reinforced alignment and integration of resource management into strategic decision-making and a continued search for innovative, resource-efficient, solutions.

See a more detailed description of the service on the EP website.

welcome-to-eprs-dir-a
Members’ Research Service
Directorate A
Impact Assessment and European Added Value presentation
Impact Assessment and European Added Value
 Directorate B
Library and Knowledge Services presentation
Library and Knowledge Services
 Directorate C
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EPRS in brief
 

Activity Reports

EPRS App

You can download the EPRS App, to keep up-to-date with the publications of the European Parliamentary Research Service – and read them anywhere, at any time, on your smartphone or tablet. The App gives you online access to some 4 000 documents from July 2014 onwards, each of them available in summary and as a full PDF text

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EPRS App on Google Play
EPRS App on App Store

 Social Media

Related websites

European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) on Europarl

A more detailed presentation of the EPRS.

Think Tank of the European Parliament

A portal with all publications produced by any of the research departments of the European Parliament.

Citizens’ Enquiries website on Europarl

All the services related to the EU citizens in one place.

Guest blogs

On an occasional basis, EPRS welcomes guest blogs from other services within the European Parliament community. Contributors include:

The Policy Department of the Directorate General for External Policies, which provides the European Parliament’s official bodies with specialist information, analysis and advice. They prepare policy advice, briefing notes, speaking points and oral briefings for the President, as well as information notes and analytical documents at the specific request of Committees or Delegations. Where necessary, the Policy Department commissions studies by external experts. They also publish all European Parliament Fact-Sheets on External Relations, and participate in the preparation of delegations and meetings.

The Deputy Secretary General (DSG), who is responsible for legislative coordination and planning both within the Parliament and in relation to other Institutions, particularly the Council and the Commission. In carrying out these tasks, the DSG is assisted by the Inter-institutional Relations Unit and the Legislative Planning and Coordination Unit (and is also responsible for the Classified Information Unit). The DSG’s services assist the President and the Parliament’s governing bodies with briefing and background notes on specific dossiers and procedures, prepares the preliminary draft agendas of plenary sessions, as well as other documents in relation to strategic programming, such as on activities of the Commission and the Council.

GlobalStat, a project of the EUI’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation aims to offer the best available gateway to statistical data. It is easily accessible, intuitive to use, and free of charge. In just three clicks it offers data from 1960 onwards for 193 UN countries, five continents and 12 political and regional entities – including the European Union – gathered from over 80 international sources. The project, presents data as diverse as income distribution, water resources, housing, migration, land use, food production, nutrition, or life expectancy, which contributes to a better understanding of the interrelations between human living conditions and globalisation trends.

Questions?

Do you want to know about the work and functions of the European Parliament? Send us a question! Use our ‘Ask EP’ form.

For general enquiries about the EPRS, please send us an email: eprs(at)ep.europa.eu or drop us a comment below

Terms and Conditions

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Contact us

Library Reading room at the EP

For any further information or for cases where you want to unsubscribe from any of the services mentioned in these terms and condition; delete all or part of your data; or request access to the personal data we save about you, please contact the person designated as being in charge of the processing operation via EPRS-StrategyCoord@europarl.europa.eu. You have the right to have recourse at any time by writing to the Parliament’s data protection officer at data-protection@ep.europa.eu and to the European data protection supervisor at edps@edps.europa.eu.

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We may delete comments, without notice, that:

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In case of repetitive breach of these guidelines, we reserve the right to block a person from participating in discussion on this site. Comments posted on our website do not necessarily represent the interests or opinions of the European Parliamentary Research Service and the European Parliament.