Lawyer and researcher Julia Carceller Stella (Castellón, Spain) presented the IISL's master's students with a relatively new field of research within Sociology and Law, such as Regulatory Impact Assessment, and invited them to delve into it: "Regulatory Impact Assessment needs us all", she said at the end of her presentation.
Julia Carceller first laid out for the students the core of what RIA is. She explained that it was first introduced in the US in the 70s but it is not until recently that it has begun to be in use to assess the impact of all kinds of regulations in Spain and in other European countries. According to this scholar, RIA is a methodology "to assess the measure in which a norm achieves or can achieve its goals, and prevent it from causing undesired effects. "Making regulation requires a prior and subsequent analysis of its need, its impact, and to determine its effectiveness". She went on to say that, while RIA is commonly used in Economics, Sociology and Law are yet not so familiar with it, partly because, as she explained with examples, "it is easy to do a financial cost-benefit assessment, but it is very complex to monetarize social impact". However, as she said, there are methodologies and techniques to assess the impact that some kind of regulation may have or has had after implementation. Some of the most effective of these techniques require big data pools and data-cross reference.
At the end of the presentation, the students asked questions and shared their view on the development and implementation of RIA in fields such as gender equality, protection of children and environmental policies.
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