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Valletta - Malta, 24 and 25 May 2017

The ESPON Seminar will contribute to the debate on the performance and future of EU Cohesion policy by highlighting and discussing new evidence on future development challenges, territorial potentials and new governance solutions for achieving European policy targets at national and regional levels. At the same time, it addresses one of the themes of the current Maltese presidency of the Council of the European Union on territories with geographic specificities.

In particular the seminar will discuss an integrated approach to promote development in different types of territories and on the role of territorial cooperation in support of EU Cohesion Policy, including the policy orientations and knowledge contributions that ESPON can provide to support EU, national and regional policymakers. In this context it will address the selection of investment priorities, as well as the identification of complementarities and synergies with other (neighbouring) regions.

The event is organised in cooperation with the Maltese EU Presidency of the European Union in the framework of the ESPON Cooperation Programme.

Objective

The objective of the Seminar is to promote the use of existing and new upcoming ESPON territorial evidence in policy-making by:

• fostering dialogue and networking among researchers and practitioners on how to make use of new and innovative ESPON territorial evidence and policy advice to deliver effective responses to territorial development challenges and support specific territorial potentials of European regions and cities;
• discussing the practical use of ESPON knowledge base in given policy frameworks and allowing policy makers and practitioners to formulate and further precise the demand of knowledge towards ESPON;
• building complementarities and synergies of ongoing ESPON research activities in support of key policy processes;
• raising awareness of policy-makers on available ESPON evidence support.

Methods

The seminar programme consists of a mix of high profile keynote presentations, panel discussions, and interactive workshops. An audience interaction tool will be used to crowd-source the best questions from the audience. Participants will be able to vote on the most relevant questions to be addressed, which will generate real-time insights on key issues through live polling of the audience.

During the workshops, stakeholders will be actively engaged in discussing the content and policy-relevance of the current ESPON activities. A networking session will be organised to raise awareness of participants on possibilities to benefit from ESPON support.

Audience

A warm welcome is extended to all policy makers, practitioners, scientists and experts, who want to know more about the ESPON evidence or who are already involved in defining, producing and using the results of ESPON.

Considering the current policy context, the content of the seminar programme is specifically addressed to policy-makers and programme authorities:

• engaged in the design and/ or implementation of Cohesion policy, including its territorial cooperation objective;
• developing and implementing policies in support of territories with geographic specificities;
• engaged and/or interested in existing good practices and new territorial governance solutions to promote functional geographies and territorial cooperation.

The seminar is open for all, but has a maximum capacity of 250 participants. It is free of charge but each participant has to cover expenses for their own travel arrangements and accommodation.

Registration

The registration for the Seminar is now closed.

Where

Mediterranean Conference Centre

Valletta, Malta

Contact

ESPON EGTC [email protected]