ESPON 2013 Programme Info Day on New Calls and Partner Café

1. ESPON 2013 Programme Info Day on New Calls and Partner Café Call for Proposals on Applied Research

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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 €

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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 €

9. 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 • Howcan 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?

10. 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.

11. 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 €

12. 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

13. 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).”

14. 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?

15. 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 €

16. 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?

17. 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

18. Further Questions For questions on the content please send an e-mail to: content@espon.eu. For questions regarding procedures please send an e-mail to: procedures@espon.eu. Thank you for your attention!