As part of the European Semester and the monitoring of the Europe 2020 strategy, the Member States (MS) submit their annual National Reform Programmes (NRP), which specify the progress made and action to be undertaken in areas such as employment, research, innovation, energy or social inclusion in order to meet the goals and targets set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy.

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) strongly supports the Europe 2020 strategy, while emphasizing  the need to coordinate and implement actions at all levels of government, including local and regional authorities (LRA). The CoR accomplishes this through a variety of mechanisms and initiatives, including the Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform (EUROPE2020MP) and Territorial Pacts.

Following the CoR's analysis of the role played by LRA in the first round of NRP submissions in 2011, the 2012 study is based on the same set of questions and evaluation protocol used in 2011. Three additional assessment questions were added to reflect the dynamic nature of Europe's economic and policy landscape, including the pressing need to promote sustainable job growth and the fiscal consolidation of the public sector. The second study’s objectives mirror those of the first, namely:

• to analyse if and to what extent LRAs were involved in the design of NRPs.
• to examine whether and to what extent the NRPs comply with the request made by the Commission last year for national authorities to explain:
• how they plan to involve/have involved LRAs and relevant stakeholders in defining and implementing the NRPs;
• how they communicate/plan to communicate on Europe 2020 and on their NRPs;