How policies become best practices: a case study of best practice making in an EU knowledge sharing project

Best practices are prevalent in all fields of planning and act to highlight effective and implementable examples, set standards, and generally assist ‘evidence-based' policy-making. In doing so, they frame what futures are desirable and play a role in shaping the planned environment. Despite this power, little is known about how certain policies come to be considered best practices. This article takes a case of best practice making in an EU INTERREG project and illuminates the processes and justifications used to select and formulate best practices. Reviewing project documents and interviewing those involved in selecting possible best practices, demonstrates who decides what should be exemplified, how the decisions are taken, and on what grounds choices are made. The varied and subjective reasonings we find to justify best practices calls into question their perceived neutrality and sturdiness as policy-making instruments. However, selecting best practices, as a process itself, is not without benefits for participants as the reflective element enabled unique forms of learning, opening up wider questions about what function best practices have in making policy.