NORMAND Romuald

INRP

Expertise, networks and measurement instruments: the development of a European policy of education

Discussions between experts and policy-makers are commonplace as part of the governance established by the European Commission. Experts within committees and working groups are essential to the negotiating processes between the Commission, Member States and the European Parliament. The pursuit of consensus often prevails over conflict. That’s why the knowledge provided by experts allows to depoliticize debates and offers an acceptable norm common to all members. As part of its lifelong learning strategy, the Directorate-General for Education and Culture set up its own institutional networks that are instrumental in orienting the Commission’s recommendations and directives but in parallel, DG EAC can mobilise more informal networks of experts to put forward their own policy agenda. This expertise external to DG EAC makes work with Member States easier as scientific interpretations can be soundly applied to models, methodologies, and measurement instruments that are in turn borrowed by national policy-makers. The notions of “policy borrowing” and “knowledge transfer” used by Jenny Ozga seem relevant to analyse the production of knowledge relative to this expertise. Indeed the Commission borrows plans or policy engineering designed elsewhere, at local, national or international level or within organisations such as OECD or the World Bank. There is also knowledge transfer in the sense that local or national knowledge is reproblematised according to new issues and the European context to be ultimately translated into knowledge and action frameworks or into governance instruments useful to European policy-makers.