The current UVP-report contains articles on the European Union’s impact assessment system, the development and state of affairs of IAs in Germany and the application of IAs in spatial planning in the UK. The outlook article summarizes the findings and suggests approaches for IAs to be used as an instrument for preventive environmental protection. The members of the Policy Assessment Group at the Environmental Policy Research Centre Johanna Ferretti, Dr. Klaus Jacob and Dr. Sabine Weiland made decisive contributions to the issue. Johanna Ferretti, together with Aranka Podhora gave an introduction to the subject area. In two other articles, she worked together with further authors on opportunities and challenges for the integration of environmental elements into the European Commission’s IA system and on IA approaches as an opportunity for preventive environmental protection in Germany, which would require an improvement of the consideration of environmental aspects within IAs. Dr. Klaus Jacob and Dr. Sabine Weiland examined the design and practice of IAs in the context of law-making in Germany, to which they attribute a range of weaknesses, especially a lack of transparency.