ESPON 2013 Programme
Info Day on New Calls and Partner Café
Call for Proposals on Applied Research
Priority 1: Applied Research on Territorial Development,
Competitiveness and Cohesion
Objectives:
• Building new facts and evidence about European regions and cities
related to structures, trends, perspectives and policy impacts
• Provide comparable regionalised information & policy options for
benchmarking in the European context on themes and territorial
phenomena
• Address territorial potential and challenges for regions and cities
• Support assessment of territorial impacts of policies
• Support identification of potential synergies through territorial
cooperation
Priority 1: Applied Research on Territorial, Development, Competitiveness
and Cohesion
Outputs expected:
• Inception report
– approx. 12 weeks after kick-off meeting
• Interim report
– normally 6 months later
• Draft final report
– normally 12 months later
• Final report
– normally 4 months later
Deliveries expected:
• Presentations at ESPON seminars
• Delivery of data and maps – in consultation with ESPON 2013 Database project
• Delivery of models developed
• Dissemination of project results
Each project is followed and advised by a Sounding Board
Call for Proposals for 4 Applied Research Projects
Project themes:
1. European Neighbour Regions
2. Small and Medium sized Towns in their Functional Territorial
Context
3. The territorial dimension of Poverty and Social Exclusion in
Europe
4. Economic Crises: Resilience of Regions
Coordination with other relevant ESPON projects essential,
particularly with the ESPON 2013 Database project
1. European Neighbour Regions
Objective:
• Extension of the existing knowledge base with content-oriented
territorial evidence on the territorial state, structures and trends in
cities and regions neighbouring the ESPON territory.
Main policy demand for research:
• What territorial dynamics and respective changes over time can be
identified between cities and regions of the ESPON territory and their
neighbourhood?
• Existing structures and dynamics of the ESPON neighbourhood
• Impact of territorial characteristics
• Likely changes of territorial flows
• Improvement of existing territorial structures, dynamics and flows
Budget: max. 750.000 €
1. European Neighbour Regions
Area to be covered:
• Mediterranean Area
• South-East Europe
• North-East Europe
Proposed building blocks:
• General approach including:
• Assessment of the territorial structures
• Analysis of territorial impacts of current economic and social
dynamics
• Lessons learned of previous policy actions
• In-depth approach providing:
• Territorial evidence on flows
• Information on territorial impact of a possibly further enlarged EU
• Information on comparative-advantages of co-operation options
• Case studies
1. European Neighbour Regions
Key research issues:
• Structures and dynamics of cities and regions neighbouring the
ESPON territory
• Territorial flows and their changes over time
• Cooperation options
Outputs:
•
•
•
•
Set of basic territorial data and indicators
Typologies
Case studies
Reports on the trends and perspectives for the regions under
observation
• Maps
2. Small and Medium-sized Towns in their Functional Territorial Context
Objective:
• To provide evidence on the roles and functions that small and medium sized
towns perform in various territorial contexts, e.g. as providers of employment,
growth and services of general interest, that contribute to the Europe 2020
Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth?
Main policy demand:
• How can policy at different levels unleash the potentials and diminish the
barriers for development of small and medium sized towns in different
territorial contexts development in ways that strengthen their functional
character?
• How can policy support the development of governance and cooperation
arrangements of small and medium-sized towns in various territorial contexts
in order to strengthen their contribution to a more balanced territorial
development of the European regions?
Budget: max. 650.000 €
2. Small and Medium-sized Towns in their Functional Territorial Context
Key research themes and issues:
1. Small and medium-sized towns in the territorial structures of Europe
• How can small and medium sized towns, defined as places with an urban centre of
5.000 to 50.000 inhabitants be identified using a methodology that is compatible with
the revised classification of cities and towns at European scale?
• How are they distributed throughout ESPON space and in different territorial contexts?
• How have they performed over time with regard to demographic and economic
development, and how does this compare to development at national and European
level?
2. The roles and functions of small and medium-sized towns
• What roles and functions do they perform in different territorial contexts, e.g. Being
nearby to a much larger urban centre or to having a sparsely populated rural
hinterland?
• What is the relevant functional area of a small or medium-sized town? Is commuting
the most pertinent indicator to define a functional area for a small and medium-sized
town? What other indicators can be used?
2. Small and Medium-sized Towns in their Functional Territorial Context
3. Governance and co-operation for development of small-and medium-sized towns
• What type of governance and cooperation arrangements exist at various levels aimed at
improving the effectiveness and efficiency of public policies and public services? What
practices have worked well for small and medium-sized towns?
• How can the different governance and cooperation arrangements used in ESPON
countries be improved, in particular policies aimed at increasing critical mass, promoting
cooperation between local authorities to the merger of small local authorities?
Outputs:
• Up-to-date review of conceptual and methodological approaches
• State-of-the art literary review of research and studies.
• A conceptual and methodological framework for identifying and studying small and
medium-sized towns.
• Empirical evidence and analysis on the development and territorial potentials of small
and medium sized towns in their respective functional area
• 10 in-depth case studies should be selected based on and reflecting the diversity of
territorial contexts listed in the ESPON Territorial Typologies.
• Policy considerations.
3. Territorial dimension of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe
Main policy demand for research:
• Which territories are confronted with high degrees of poverty and
social exclusion?
• What policy recommendations follow from a territorial analysis of
poverty and social exclusion?
• How can poverty and social exclusion be monitored at territorial level?
Budget: max. 750.000 €
3. Territorial dimension of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe
Results are expected on the following key research issues:
• Mapping poverty and social exclusion:
• Development of a robust but flexible estimation methodology to map
poverty or exclusion on NUTS 3 or lower
• Creation of territorial poverty maps for all ESPON countries and regions
• Identification the main changes and territorial trends over time and
where bottlenecks of growth exist
• Policy recommendations:
• Identification of areas where policy should focus to reduce poverty and
social exclusion and where opportunities exist to support the EU2020S
• Analysis of common characteristics of high poverty and exclusion areas
• Identification of integrated poverty or exclusion policy package
3. Territorial dimension of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe
Results are expected on the following key research issues:
• Territorial poverty monitoring:
• Proposal of methodologies and indicators to be used to monitor poverty
and social exclusion in a territorial manner and annually
• Creation of typologies of ESPON countries based on their poverty and
social exclusion profile
• Analysis of reliability and policy relevance of indicators and
recommendations for improvements
Note: the “risk-of-poverty threshold” mentioned in the PS (p. 4) is not
correct and should be replaced by the following definition:
“People being at risk of poverty dispose of an income below the
risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60 % of the national
median equivalised disposable income (after social transfers).”
4. Economic Crises: Resilience of Regions
Main policy demand for research:
Territorial impact of the last economic crisis
• What is the territorial impact of the last economic crisis?
• What economic activities/sectors were particularly impacted by the crisis and
where are these located in Europe?
• How could this be mapped?
Resilience of regions
• What quantitative and qualitative factors allow regions to move faster out of
economic downturn?
• What elements in economic structures and policy responses made a
difference?
• What (types of) regions and territories turn out to be more resilient and
successfully adaptive and why?
4. Economic Crises: Resilience of Regions
Main policy demand for research:
Policy responses
• What can regional policymakers do to complement macro-economic measures
stimulating at economic recovery?
• How can policymakers enhance the resilience of the regional economies for
future economic downturn?
• Is part of better resilience to be found in integrated and place-based policy
action?
Budget: max. 759.153 €
4. Economic Crises: Resilience of Regions
Key research issues:
• Territorial impact of the last economic crises:
• How can territorial impact of the economic crises be measured at
different geographical levels?
• What are good indicators?
• What is the territorial impact of the economic crises in Europe? Have
specific types of regions been more affected?
• How do economic crises impact territories in terms of spatial distribution
and time?
• Resilience of regions:
• Which regions tend to be resilient to crises and which not?
• What territorial and other characteristics make regions resilient and why?
• Policy responses:
• Can territorial development policy impact regional resilience and
economic recovery and increase economic resilience?
• How is and how this can be achieved?
4. Economic Crises: Resilience of Regions
Outputs:
• Set of basic territorial data and indicators
• Typology of different economic structures in Europe
• European maps showing regional impacts of the economic crises
and regions with fast recovery
• Case studies (6-8 case study areas)
• List of success factors and barriers for recovery strategies including
potentials for place based approaches
• Slideshows on the assumptions, methodology and results of the
project
Further Questions
For questions on the content
please send an e-mail to:
[email protected].
For questions regarding procedures
please send an e-mail to:
[email protected].
Thank you for your attention!