National Peer Review Initiative (NPRI)

Project description and aims

The project aims at setting the basis for the development of autonomous Peer Review activities in National Networks of Environmental Authorities and Agencies. It can be used as an instrument to improve own performances through dialog, collaborative confrontation and sharing of good practices among the peers belonging to the same network.

NPRI has been recognized as a powerful instrument that can help the development of the EU ECA initiative through mainly due to its potential in implementation of good and best practices and homogenization,

The phase I of the project had the objective to develop the framework in which this kind of initiatives should be held: The peer review process was studied as a general and flexible scheme, based on the experiences of important international organizations already using it. Thanks to the work of the NPRI Project team, the national networks have access to all the information and schemes to begin the implementation of peer reviews on their own initiative and by their own means. IMPEL is willing to support the development of this practice that can be tailored to fit the characteristics and needs of the network itself.

In the phase II of the project important topics were urther studied to enhance the implementation of the initiative. The importance of a structure at national level that should be responsible for the development of Peer Review activities was underlined, and this topic was consequently explored. The design of the Peer Review Assessment Framework, based on the identified scope of the initiative, was deepened. Also, the institutional and social environment in which a Network is acting was considered. It was concluded that it is essential to perform, as soon as possible when planning a peer review, a stakeholder’s analysis to understand who are the interlocutors that should be involved in the implementation of the peer review results because of their interest and/or powers. Furthermore, the training of the peer review team was studied, as fundamental step to achieve the necessary quality standard.

The phase III of the NPRI project, aims to support Countries willing to develop their own peer review scheme or willing to improve the scheme they already use. The Project Team is also available for supporting the actual organization and conduction of peer reviews.

Related files/information

• Presentations-Closing Seminar NPRI-phase 2
• COM(2018) 10 final (Action 1 “Improve deployment of environmental compliance assurance expertise across the EU by means of peer reviews, joint enforcement actions, compliance assurance visits and use of the TAIEX-EIR Peer2Peer tool”)