ESI has often found that appealing simultaneously to a national and an international audience is an effective influencing strategy. Much of our analysis has been written for external audiences – donors, international organisations, EU member states. But this is rarely enough to bring about real change. The challenge is to write products that can successful challenge both national and international policy makers.

ESI has undertaken research since 1999 in a large number of different countries and territories: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Turkey, and Bulgaria. In Kosovo ESI was asked to set up and manage a unique Lessons Learned and Analysis Unit within the EU Pillar of UNMIK for three years, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina it carried out a Governance Assessment for DfID. Since 2004 it has also carried out research across Anatolia and established a reputation as a source of new and reliable information on Turkish society. Currently, ESI is working on a New Economic Geography of South Eastern Europe, a series of studies of local and regional change to help explain the big policy challenges across a complex region.