Method C

How and who selects the topics for the Reports C?

In collaboration with the Advisory Committee, Oficina C proposes a series of topics of interest to the Congress of Deputies. From this preselection, the Bureau of the Congress chooses the final ones to produce the Reports C.

Method C establishes a series of criteria to evaluate and assess the different themes of interest and presents them systematically to the Bureau of the Congress. The goal is to identify topics supported by abundant scientific evidence and that have a potential impact on Spain in the medium and long term.

You can find more information on the Topics C page. 

How many people work on each Report C?

For each Report C, there is one Scientific and Technological Evidence Officer leading the topic and one coordinator giving support.

All the Scientific and Technological Evidence Officers work together in cross-cutting and methodology sharing processes. They also participate as internal reviewers for all Reports C.

You can read more about the members of Oficina C on the Team C page. 

What are the steps involved in the production of the Reports C?

Reports C are the final outcome of Method C. They are short scientific evidence reports on the topics selected by the Bureau of the Congress.

They contextualise and summarise the available scientific evidence and identify areas of consensus, dissent, uncertainties, and ongoing debates.

Their production process consists of:

• A literature review phase. It is an exhaustive and interdisciplinary review that helps identify the available scientific evidence on a specific area, determine its interactions within the Spanish, European and international environments, and define the report's structure. Reports C include references to all the bibliography consulted.
• An interview phase. It consists of dozens of interviews with researchers, scientists, and experts on the given topic. This phase helps determine the report's final scope, focus, and trends. Reports C include acknowledgements to scientists, researchers, and experts consulted.

If you are a researcher, scientist or expert and think you could contribute with your expertise to production of Reports C, please fill in following form.

How is the review process?

Reports C are reviewed at different levels before their publication:

• Oficina C conducts an internal review to analyse the reports´ content (relevance, comprehensiveness, impartiality), format (style, language, structure) and references. Experts in science journalism also collaborate in this review.
• Scientists, researchers, and the experts consulted during the interview phase conduct two rounds of full or partial review of the Reports C.

Oficina C has editorial responsibility for the content of all Reports C.

What communication channels are used?

Reports C are translated into English and published (both in English and Spanish) on the EPTA network platform.

In addition, Reports C are disseminated and communicated to the general public using different engaging audiovisual formats to facilitate their accesibility.

All content produced by Oficina C is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 . This means that all materials can be copied, distributed, publicly communicated, and transformed, also for commercial use, as long as Oficina C is cited as the source.