On 14 and 15 July 2020 BESTMAP held a workshop entitled "Improving the environmental and social capacity of EC impact assessment tools" in an entirely online environment. The event was divided in plenary sessions with three thematic breakout discussion groups, where the attendees were mainly from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). Additionally, the workshop has been participated by 37 external members.

Some of the main topics covered during the discussion were related to the agricultural policy impact modelling, potential tools for implementation. The need for impact assessment on currently proposed policies by the Council and the European Parliament, was also covered. In relation to this topic, the participants were engaged in a deliberation on the implementation of changes on the impact assessment of modelling.

During one of the breakout discussions, it has been touched upon the Post-2020 CAP and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) indicators. The group looked at which social or environmental indicators are currently missing. An essential topic for debate was which indicators are important for modelling tools already in use, together with the role of models in transferring from results indicators to impact indicators.

Last but not least, the workshop engaged the attendees in a discussion on the Macroeconomic and ecosystem services model linkages. The importance of farmer decision-making was highlighted and the limitations of current tools in capturing this, especially with regard to complex behaviour were recognised.