by Lars Josephsen

Policy briefs – A feature in the documentation of Work Packages activities.

All CINEFOGO work has been organized around Work Packages (WPs). In total 50 WPs have been developed throughout the project period. Each WP is identified by a number and a title, as e.g. WP 40: “European Programme for Decision Makers in Civil Society”. Further, the WP identification includes the name(s) of persons responsible and the name(s) of leading and involved CINEFOGO contractors.

The final documentation of the activities related to a specific WP includes the following items: Objectives of the WP, Progress towards the objectives, Deviations and corrections, and Policy implications.

The Policy implication part of the WP activity reports deserves a special attention in relation to search (by e.g. journalists, policy makers, scholars from various fields, libraries, etc.) for documentation of evidence that connects social science and policy, i.e. information from the borderland between findings from social research project activities and policy options. Thus an ambition of the CINEFOGO Network has been that each WP activity report includes a policy implication section related to the objectives of the actual WP, where the following points are considered and formulated in a language for non-specialists:

·         Key issues to be addressed by policymakers

·         What is it that requires decision and action?

·         How this subject has evolved or become a concern?

·         Based on the WP findings, what could be recommended decision makers to do?

This feature of the WP documentation in the activity reports is highlighted here in order to give focus on possible practical application of the CINEFOGO activity reports, that are accessible via the CINEFOGO data base ( www.cinefogo.org ).

A handbook on Third Sector Policy

A new handbook has recently been published, that might be of interest for CINEFOGO partners and more generally for scholars working within Third Sector Analysis and Civil Society in a European context.

Handbook On Third Sector Policy in Europe

Multi-level processes and Organized Civil Society

Edited by Jeremy Kendall, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR), University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

Published December 2009 by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenham, UK

The book contains 3 parts: I. Introduction and National Policy Situations. II. Multi-Level Policy Cases, and III. The EU Institutional Level and Concluding Observations