Common use of Research Design Clause in Contracts

Research Design. The paper relies on data from the INTEREURO Interest Group Survey,26 a tool designed within the INTEREURO-project to examine organizational characteristics and policy activities of interest groups active at the EU level. The survey was conducted from 9 March to 2 July 2015 and targeted senior leaders of the interest groups (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2016). In total, 2,038 interest organizations were selected from the Transparency Register of the EU, the ▇▇▇▇▇ Directory.27 To be included in the sample, the organizations had 83 to fulfil three requirements: (1) EU-level interest organizations which could be EU peak associations or national organizations with (2) a presence in Brussels and (3) that show some interest in EU policymaking processes. The organizations included in the sample fit perfectly the purpose of this study because, due to their layered structure, they require to put in place a certain organizational structure that defines the interaction between members. The last section of the paper discusses how the focus on interest groups active at the EU level may have consequences for the occurrence of our explanatory factors and thus for the generalizability of the results. Despite the hurdles related to gaining the organizational data of interest groups (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ & ▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2018), 738 groups completed the questionnaire, reaching a response rate of 36.2% (▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2016). To enable the identification of group type (i.e., business vs. non-business groups), only membership-based groups that were accurately categorized are included. Groups that did not provide such information (n=128) were excluded from the sample. Additionally, groups without members (n=48) have been dropped from the database, leading to 559 interest groups for which survey data is available. The bottom-up sampling approach used to obtain the sample of groups included in the survey entails an important limitation, namely that it does not represent a perfect match for studies on interest group influence due to the long chain of intermediate steps between mobilization and final policy outcomes (Berkhout et al., 2018). However, this dataset of 559 groups is combined with the ‘Transparency International EU – Integrity Watch’ database of interest groups with access to public officials of the Commission – i.e., Com- missioners, their Cabinets, and Director-Generals (European Commission, 2014).28 In total, 196 out of the 559 membership-based groups that responded to the INTEREURO survey had at least one meeting with public officials between December 2014 and October 2017.

Research Design. The paper relies on data from the INTEREURO Interest Group Survey,26 a tool designed within the INTEREURO-project to examine organizational characteristics and policy activities of interest groups active at the EU level. The survey was conducted from 9 March to 2 July 2015 and targeted senior leaders of the interest groups (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2016). In total, 2,038 interest organizations were selected from the Transparency Register of the EU, the ▇▇▇▇▇ Directory.27 To be included in the sample, the organizations had 83 to fulfil three requirements: (1) EU-level interest organizations which could be EU peak associations or national organizations with (2) a presence in Brussels and (3) that show some interest in EU policymaking processes. The organizations included in the sample fit perfectly the purpose of this study because, due to their layered structure, they require to put in place a certain organizational structure that defines the interaction between members. The last section of the paper discusses how the focus on interest groups active at the EU level may have consequences for the occurrence of our explanatory factors and thus for the generalizability of the results. Despite the hurdles related to gaining the organizational data of interest groups (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ & ▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2018), 738 groups completed the questionnaire, reaching a response rate of 36.2% (▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2016). To enable the identification of group type (i.e., business vs. non-business groups), only membership-based groups that were accurately categorized are included. Groups that did not provide such information (n=128) were excluded from the sample. Additionally, groups without members (n=48) have been dropped from the database, leading to 559 interest groups for which survey data is available. The bottom-up sampling approach used to obtain the sample of groups included in the survey entails an important limitation, namely that it does not represent a perfect match for studies on interest group influence due to the long chain of intermediate steps between mobilization and final policy outcomes (Berkhout ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2018). However, this dataset of 559 groups is combined with the ‘Transparency International EU – Integrity Watch’ database of interest groups with access to public officials of the Commission – i.e., Com- missioners, their Cabinets, and Director-Generals (European Commission, 2014).28 In total, 196 out of the 559 membership-based groups that responded to the INTEREURO survey had at least one meeting with public officials between December 2014 and October 2017.