What is the “Under the Microscope” project?

The “Under the Microscope” project is an academic research project at James Madison University. The project’s research team analyzes documents that the European Commission publishes—meeting agendas, meeting minutes, weekly activities reports, and more. By synthesizing important components of these documents, the team helps to clarify what the European Union’s most influential politicians say and do.

Why do we put the European Commission under the microscope?

We put the European Commission under the microscope because it is one of the European Union’s (EU’s) most powerful institutions. The Commission employs roughly 32,000 permanent and contract employees and carries out critical executive and administrative functions. The Commission’s work affects the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people living within and outside of Europe.

European commissioners (currently 27 in number, one from each EU member-state) direct the Commission’s business. Led by their president, they set governing priorities, develop legislation, meet with policy stakeholders, oversee the implementation of EU law, and represent the EU in the member-states and the broader world.

What’s new about the Under the Microscope project’s analytical approach?

The Under the Microscope project uses artificial intelligence and computational methods to increase transparency. For many years, the Commission has faced calls to increase its transparency. It has often responded to these calls by uploading huge quantities of documents to its website. These documents often contain important information. But it can be very difficult to distinguish the forest from the trees. Interested parties (journalists, engaged citizens, others) may have to spend many hours digging through the Commission’s “document dump” to uncover valuable insights.

The “Under the Microscope” team wants to make it easier to see inside the Commission. The team uses creative dashboards to communicate the information that it gleans from the mass of documents that the Commission has published on its servers.

Traditionally, students of the Commission have used interviews, surveys, participant observation, and deep analyses of small quantities of Commission documents to illuminate the ways the Commission works.

The Under the Microscope team’s approach is different. We leverage AI and advanced analytical tools to provide information about the ways that commissioners operate and the Commission’s historical development.