1 / 21 6 th Progress Report on Social and Economic Cohesion The debate on Territorial Cohesion & Regional Creativity and Innovation

2 / 21 6 th Progress Report Focus is on creativity and innovation and how they contribute to regional development The report also includes a short summary of the consultation on the Territorial cohesion Green Paper

3 / 21 Regional creativity and innovation Generating a new and useful idea and putting it into practice

4 / 21 Creativity Creativity is fuelled by interaction of different, talented people Stimulate local talent Attract foreign talent Encourage tolerance Boost ICT

5 / 21 Boosting local talent Education and training can stimulate creativity Large differences remain in terms of secondary and tertiary educational attainment Capitals tend to score high due to proximity to universities and (internal) migration of graduates

6 / 21 Women are gaining more education On average, women now have almost the same education level as men. In one out two regions, women have a higher educational level than men Women aged are in virtually all regions more educated than those aged Women aged now tend to be more educated than men in the same age group

7 / 21 New People New Ideas

8 / 21 Unemployment shrunk and converged since 2000

9 / 21 GDP per head continues to converge

10 / 21 Employment rate have increased but not converged

11 / 21 Tolerance is fairly high, but decreasing for ethnic minorities In the EU four out five are comfortable with a woman, or someone with different ethnicity, a different religion or a disability or a homosexual in the highest elected political position or as a neighbour Comfort levels are lowest for people with a different ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation But most people thought ethnic discrimination had increased over the past five years.

12 / 21 Core Creative class Core creative class is high in capitals and other urban regions especially in high-tech regions with many tertiary educated and foreign born residents The core creative class are likely to be innovative and entrepreneurial leading to more jobs and growth They like tolerant places

13 / 21 Innovation New Firms –Start-ups –New Foreign Firms In existing firms –R&D –Technological innovation –Non-technological innovation

14 / 21 New Firms more innovation

15 / 21 Ease of starting a business, World Bank 2009 Only six EU MS are in the World Bank top 20: Ireland, UK, France, Denmark, Finland and Belgium At least 100 countries score better than Germany, Austria, Greece, Spain and Poland Easing the creation of start-ups and allowing them to grow fast will improve innovation, growth and jobs

16 / 21 Productivity is catching up

17 / 21 Innovation in firms: R&D and others

18 / 21 Conclusion Convergence regions –Embed FDI –Boost educational attainment and training –Stimulate tourism Transition regions –Shift from efficiency to innovation –Boost training –Increase R&D –Attract more FDI RCE regions –Invest in innovation –Speed up transition idea to market place –Integrate migrants in labour market All regions –Facilitate start-ups, especially high-growth –Reduce discrimination –Invest in education and human capital

19 / 21 Territorial Cohesion: the debate Support for the three Cs (concentration, connections and cooperation) Functional approaches are endorsed Local development is highlighted Some raise the geographic specificities but little support for separate policies of funds for each specificity

20 / 21 Cooperation Territorial cooperation is an excellent example of European value added and should be reinforced Crossborder cooperation: one budget? More eligible actions? European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation Transnational cooperation: Baltic Sea, Danube… Interregional cooperation

21 / 21 Impacts and measurements European policies with a strong territorial impact should be better coordinated by fine-tuning existing instruments The understanding and measurement of territorial trends and dynamics should be enhanced Favourable mention of ESPON and the Urban Audit