Report on Costs, Cost‐Benefit Analysis and Case Studies

This report is structured as follows. In the third chapter, we present the approach we have taken to identify the potential benefits and set the methodological issues with estimating, ex ante, the impact of EuroCohort. We then identify a number of policy domains – areas of social policy that relate to, or might impact on, children and young people’s wellbeing. Drawing on evidence of the policy impact of existing longitudinal and other large‐scale surveys, we provide an evidence‐based narrative of how and in what ways EuroCohort might affect the wellbeing of children and young people across Europe. In chapter 4 we move on to provide greater detail of how we have estimated the likely costs of delivering EuroCohort. We describe the research infrastructure necessary to run a survey that will take a quarter of a century to deliver, and will be undertaken in up to thirty countries across Europe (including countries that are members of the European Union, and some that are not). We set out costed estimates of this research infrastructure, and of the likely costs of each wave of the survey for each country likely to participate. Given the challenges of such ex ante estimates, and the scale of the undertaking, we also set out a series of clear limitations and caveats to our approach. In chapter 5, we set out the cost benefit analysis (CBA) for EuroCohort, using a breakeven approach. We explain the method adopted, the reasons for adopting this approach rather than a more traditional CBA method. We conclude this report with some implications for funders, for policy makers and for other stakeholders working in the field of child wellbeing– arising from this work and for the delivery of EuroCohort. The report is supported by two appendices. Appendix 1 presents five case studies of specific policy impacts of existing surveys and can be used to demonstrate the business case to national funders alongside national policy makers. Appendix 2 contains supplementary material to the CBA of chapter 5.