Enhancing Territorial Competitiveness through Sustainability Measures

1. ESPON 2006 Programme ESPOO meeting, 14-15 November 2006workshop 2: Innovation and competitiveness Project 3.3 Territorial dimension of the Lisbon/Gothenburg Process Lead Partner: CEIS, Centre for International Studies on Economic Growth - Faculty of Economics, University of Rome “Tor Vergata” Project Partners: Centre for Urban Development and Environmental Management, Leeds Metropolitan University (UK); OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Technical University of Delft (NL); Centre of Geographical Studies, University of Lisbon (P); Centre of Urban and Regional Studies (CURS),Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) (FI);Slovenia ESPON Contact Point Subcontractors:Mcrit sl., Barcelona (E); IGS, Italian Geographical Society (I) by Maria Prezioso

2. Main Lisbon/Gothenburg questionsand Research Contextualisation • Criteria, Political recommendations, indicators to revisit the Structural Funds2007-2013, having full coherence with the dictates on competitiveness (Lisbon 2000 and renovated in 2004-05), performing sustainable economic and social development (Göteborg, 2001) as a support for a policy of cohesion towards integration of the EU regional territories • Some trans-national co-operative areas to act upon by the new Structural Funds, according to precise indications expanding the base of the cohesive participation • “making Europe a more attractive place to invest and work” • “knowledge and innovation for growth” • “creating more and better jobs” • by co-operative “partnerships” 3. Definition of a new territorial dimension of Territorial Competitiveness in Sustainability

3. How Project 3.3 answered to the Lisbon Gothenburg questions Offering a territorial measure of the competitiveness in sustainability named: Capability to be competitive in sustainability calculated on the base of 4 synthetic indexes or determinants: I&R; G&L; Quality; R&F Transforming evaluation of the spatial dimension in a assessment of the geographical/territorial dimension - to support 2007-2013 polycentric European political goals - to integrate economic competitiveness to the social cohesion - to specify some misures and actions to guarantee at the present and future generations a net life quality improvement by innovation and technology, the enterprise and society partecipation at the decisional process (i.e. for sustainable public policies and control of climate change)

4. From the Short List of Structural Indicators …

5. Examples of 4 synthetic indices: territorial dimension of I&R and G/L interaction at NUTS2 level

6. Examples of 4 synthetic indices: territorial dimension of Quality and R&F at NUTS2 level

7. Policy options/recommendations with regards to macro and micro capability to be innovative and competitive in sustanability to increase the general populations’ access to the Information Society by telecommunication and education systems, organised at either national or regional level, which reach the most regions. to engage the middle-aged population in life-long projects which will enable a re-engagement in the productive system to increase education policy at tertiary level by ‘actualisation’ to international needs in Eastern and Mediterranean countries to sustain enterprises’ information access to enable a start-up to an intensification of internationalisation to link innovation and research to the local job market and introducing a major local dissemination of Structural Fund projects into the local/regional system to sustain co-operation between public and private enterprises and between firms, regional institutions and the education/research to homogenise regional fiscal pressures, by looking for example at attracting trans-national investments in the medium term, and co-ordinating regional capabilities, whilst respecting the policy plans of local population enterprises (role and performance of peripheral areas) to promote equal opportunities into access to priority projects for particular proposed transnational co-operation areas to promote specific forms of productive de-localisation in the new Eastern regions incorporing ‘Total Quality’ environmental norms in territorial plans and as an integral part of the competitiveness model to prioritise the provision of higher order services to second and lower tier cities

8. Recommendations for ESPON 2013 Programme, including ideas and needs on further research how specific measures in innovation and research profile as a priority in the new Structural Funds in Eastern countries how a move away from traditional economic variables, such as GDP pps per capita, for measuring country positions at the national and trans-national level how range of new common European welfare indicators to create a significant and innovative measure of welfare efficiency an Impact Assessment proprocedure as a new methodfor introducing a common support within the framework of the Better Regulation package and the European Sustainable Development Strategy how to apply the subisdiarity principle and the relative rules to create a link between government and governance how to study in the same contest life and environmental quality with regard to public expenditure for employment how to research specific supporters about innovation and tech transfer in a joint with technical assistance and advisory financial services provided to Agencies working for creation and development of SMEs, looking at the question of Access Intellectual Property from research organisations