The policy departments deliver a wide range of expertise, comprising studies on complex legislative issues, comparative notes and short background briefings. They serve a variety of purposes: they can feed directly into the legislative work of a specific committee or serve as a briefing for delegations of MEPs. Some of this research is carried out by external experts selected through competitive tendering, i.e. the leading academics or consultants in a specific field.

Directorate G, within the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Internal Policies, provides a broad range of products in the field of impact assessment, as well as completely new services with respect to European Added Value and Cost of non-Europe. EP committees can commission a variety of reports, briefing notes and assessments in these fields to support their work.

STOA contributes to the debate on strategic scientific and technological issues of political relevance and the policy options for tackling them through projects of a medium to long-term, interdisciplinary character, as well as information and dialogue activities, whose outcomes are relevant to Parliament in its role as legislator. Its reports are available in the database.