TranSMEC - Transnational Support Method for European Cooperation

Theme

ESPON support to programme and project development and capitalisation.

Thematic scope

In the INTERREG tradition, projects are developed bottom-up, i.e. they are triggered by the expressions of interest of relevant stakeholders. The advantage of such a way of working is that it responds to the territorial needs of each region in question. However, this bottom-up approach seems to jeopardise the overall coherence of the transnational cooperation programmes. As project ideas are developed independently, INTERREG interventions are addressed in different ways and do not always link to each other.

INTERREG programmes feel a strong need to have a systemised aggregated picture of individual project results against the backdrop of territorial evidence (as structures, developments, trends, and perspectives) that is relevant for the respective cooperation area. This information should allow them to better capitalise and communicate the overall added value of project results and to steer project and programme development in a more strategic way. In this context, the INTERREG IVB North West Europe (NWE) Programme has expressed its interest for this targeted analysis.

Please read more about the main areas of analysis and main results envisaged.

Stakeholders

Nord-Pas de Calais Regional Council, Department of EU Affairs (Lead Stakeholder)

(The Lead Stakeholder is the Managing Authority of the INTERREG IVB Programme North-West Europe. The Joint Technical Secretariat of the programme represents the Lead Stakeholder and the Monitoring Committee of the programme has an observer status in the project.)

Lead Partner

blue! advancing European projects, Germany

Budget : € 150 000,00

Project’s lifetime: February 2010 – June 2011

Delivery of Reports

Inception Report: 30 September 2010
Draft Final Report: 2 March 2011
Final Report: 2 June 2011

Publishing

Reports will be published once they are approved by the ESPON Monitoring Committee

More information

Please contact the Project Expert at the ESPON Coordination Unit:

Peter BILLING, e-mail: [email protected]

Main areas of analysis

The project shall develop a general method providing guidance on how ESPON results can add value to and/or present synergy with national and regional knowledge (e.g. data, trends, perspectives) in the development of tools to support territorial cooperation programmes in capitalisation and considerations on future strategic project development. The method shall be applied for the Northwest-Europe co-operation area. The project foresees the following analytical steps for the project implementation:

• Intake of knowledge base including ESPON, NWE and additional sources
• Establishment methodological interface (ESPON to NWE) and data application to NWE area
• Case study for selected NWE sub-region
• Case study for selected topic
• Tool production for capitalisation, dissemination, project development and programme development
• Pilot implementation

Main results envisaged

• A general method that provides guidance to transnational cooperation programmes on how ESPON results can be used for capitalisation and communication of INTERREG results and strategic project and programme development.
• A territorial information base for the NWE area including its position in the European, national and regional context and an overview of relevant development trends.
• Development of a set of tools (maps, guidance, clustering of projects, criteria, overlays) that are applied for the NWE context in order to better capitalise and communicate programme and project results and to better steer project and programme development. The tools should be transferable to other cooperation programmes.
• Identification of cross-linkages between the NWE SWOT analysis (already available) and the performance of the programme area.
• Identification of key issues for future transnational cooperation in the NWE area as they emerge from ESPON territorial evidence.