Workshop 1.3: From TeDi to GEOSPECS Development potentials in areas with geographic specificities Internal Seminar Evidence-based Cohesion policy: Territorial Dimensions 29-30 November 2011 Kraków, Poland Erik Gloersen –University of Geneva Michiel van Eupen - Alterra With a focus on how policies focusing on territories with geographic specificities could contribute - to improve the overall economic performance and resilience of the European economy And - to create perspectives of more balanced and harmonious territorial development The question is: if we move away from a regional policy whose purpose is to create cohesion, in order to facilitate integration within a single European market to a policy that also ambitions to exploit regional potentials better, and to promote more balanced, harmonious and sustainable territories Can “geographic specificities” become useful categories for policy making ? If yes, how should they be understood ? What type of knowledge do we need ? Could they help building more robust economies, that would be more resilient facing economic crises such as the ongoing one? How to position a territorial cohesion policy focusing on “territorial diversity” in economic theory debates? How to justify public interventions in areas with geographic specificities? Should they necessarily been seen as an alternative to a focus on metropolitan regions and growth centres?

Construction of policy relevant maps and figures What are the criteria of policy relevance? - Meaningful to policy makers and others? - Easy to communicate? - Reflecting actual development processes? - Focusing on territorial units that are deemed relevant? - Able to guide policy design and contribute to policy evaluation? - Appropriate for benchmarking of administrative regions?

ESPON TeDi project team: a targeted analysis - Island Consulting Services, Malta - University of Akureyri, Iceland

Case study areas Overlay of case study areas Characterised in terms of access to urban nodes Overlay of case study areas and zones within 45 minutes of Functional Urban Areas with more than 50,000 inhabitants

Demographic trends

Age structure Pronounced ageing in many localities, but also significant over-representations of young people High age dependency ratios are a shared feature of most areas

Economic activities Main deviations from average profile of case study areas  Diversity of situations

Recurring issues A number of recurring issues in the TeDi areas: Income Gender balance Focus on youth as a basis for economic development Branding, self-perception Symbolic role of knowledge-intensive activities Minimal requirements in terms of services Diversity of lifestyles as a European value The main issues are however related to small and (relative) isolation of settlements

Ensuring a sustainable development based on regional comparative advantages Identification of situations where the market fails to take proper advantage of an identified resource. Insufficient regional returns on the exploitation of natural resources  Acknowledging the existence of conflicting interests at different territorial scales Multiplicity of development models that needs to be recognised  Challenging the monolitical character of the Lisbon agenda  Challenge for GEOSPECS: How to approach this at the pan-European level?

ESPON GEOSPECS project team Lead Partner: Department of Geography, University of Geneva Mountain areas Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College UHI, UK Islands E-cubed consultants, MT Sparsely populated areas Nordregio, SE Coastal areas Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork, IE Inner periphery Alterra, Wageningen University, NL Outermost regions Louis Lengrand & associés, FR Covering a large part of the European territory Combining geographic specificities of different natures: - physical (e.g. mountains, islands, coasts) - based on settlement-patterns (sparsely populated areas) - institutional (borders, outermost regions) Border regions Thomas Stumm, Eureconsult, LU Metropolitan border regions CEPS/INSTEAD, LU New and old external borders Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung Dresden (IÖR), DE + Umweltbundesamt/Federal Environment Agency, AT

Mountain areas

from a socio-economic point of view? What is a mountain area from a socio-economic point of view? Criteria of altitude, slope, terrain and relief LAU 2 area defined as mountainous if more than 50% of territory is classed as mountainous Majority of people live in valleys / at lower altitudes Many economic processes strongly linked to nearby urban centres

Mountain areas: a question of scale Voir http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/study_en.htm «mountain areas in Europe» Pour explications Ce qui est important, c’est qu’on a choisi les seuils et les méthodes pour coller à une pérception générale de la montagne Ce qui est premier, ce n’est pas la mesure mais la catégorie mentale

Mountain areas and mountainousness Voir http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/study_en.htm «mountain areas in Europe» Pour explications Ce qui est important, c’est qu’on a choisi les seuils et les méthodes pour coller à une pérception générale de la montagne Ce qui est premier, ce n’est pas la mesure mais la catégorie mentale

Mountain areas and mountainousness Where are the Alps, the Jura, the Balkan mountain areas? Are the Pyrenees discontinu ous?

Islands and insularity Is this an island?

Islands and insularity Insular regions

Islands and insularity

Challenges working at the LAU2 level Only Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina not yet mapped Only LAU1 units available in Turkey 120 000 units

Potential daily mobility areas as a basis for mapping European territorial patterns

Access to urban nodes Built-up area Commuting area Potential daily mobility area

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GEOSPECS Method: Inner peripheries 11/06/2018 GEOSPECS Method: Inner peripheries Population potential < 100.000

11/06/2018 Thank you! © Wageningen UR

Improving the foundation of development Overcoming the duality in local development strategies, Seeking to assert their uniqueness While also aspiring to mainstream development objectives- Question of the institutional capacity to formulate strategies: The case study regions have developed variable solutions to design a development strategy based on their unique characteristics; The relative isolation of many TeDi areas limits the capacity to see opportunities and think out of the box. The value of wide ranging, incremental approaches of innovation could be further recognised; Self-perception and identity need to be further highlighted as central factors of local development.

Inputs to European policy debates Conceptual clarifications needed: (1) Level of performance ≠ Structural obstacles to growth  More than average scores ≠ good scores  Geographically specific area ≠ Lagging area (2) Economic importance ≠ Economic weight (3) Balanced, harmonious and sustainable development requires more than economic growth  geographic specificities may help identifying contradictions and mutually beneficial effects of different types of policies

Inputs to European policy debates Dealing with geographic specificities is often about creating new types of connections between areas - Within regions - Across regional and national boundaries Compensating for imbalances in flows Creating alliances through which actors can strengthen the robustness and resilience of their local communities Gaining greater weight in economic and political systems dominated by main urban areas At the European scale, a change of focus of territorial policies, incorporating the sub-regional scale is required to encourage and accompany these processes. The focus should be on potentials rather than on relative performance

GEOSPECS Method: Islands 11/06/2018 GEOSPECS Method: Islands Scale of used data is Very important

Cross-delineation