ESPON 2013 Programme Newsletter No 6/04 March 2009

Welcome to the sixth electronic ESPON 2013 Newsletter. It offers information on the latest developments of the ESPON Programme.

Message from the ESPON Coordination Unit

The world is facing the major challenge of responding to a financial crisis with an economic recession in more and more countries. This challenge is as well a major one for European countries, their regions and cities that need to maximise their contribution to reversing the unfortunate current situation for enterprises and people.

In principle, potentials for development are present in all regions and cities, and existing disparities reflect in a way the under-utilisation of local resources, which by being released could support an increasing national economic growth and more jobs to the satisfaction of the European citizens.

Evidence from ESPON and other sources show that the potential for faster economic growth and highly productive economic activity exists in many regions, and not only where economic activity currently is most concentrated. The potential is often unique for each city and region which again reflects the diversity existing within the European territory.

In turn, whether growth takes place or not mostly depends on how efficiently regions and cities understand, define and mobilise their assets, not only in a local territorial context but increasingly in a pan-European and even world-wide comparison.
Part of the mission of the ESPON 2013 Programme is to reveal territorial capital and potentials for the development of regions and larger territories contributing to European competitiveness. Therefore, results of ESPON Projects shall be defined, produced, communicated and used in this logic.

The ESPON Monitoring Committee will soon decide a number of new applied research themes that will address relevant themes for an integrated place-based approach and further enlighten the diversity of territorial potentials across the regions and cities of Europe.

In parallel, the Monitoring Committee is expected to open for further cooperation projects using ESPON results in practice together with interested stakeholders. These Targeted Analyses shall support development processes in the involved countries, regions and cities detecting under-used development potential and contribute to counteracting the current global economic situation.

Territorial development opportunities in the global economic recession will become an important theme for the ESPON 2013 Programme and will probably in the years to come be an important focus in many activities supporting the capitalisation of ESPON results.

ESPON projects and events shall, in the light of the global economic challenges, offer policy-makers, stakeholders, scientists and practitioners involved in European territorial development moments for presenting ideas and comparable evidence on territorial dynamics in order to share and debate experiences in the development of regions, cities and larger territories. The aim will be to support policy development in favour of European competitiveness and territorial cohesion fostering both endogenous development and territorial cooperation of European regions, cities and larger territories by better exploiting existing resources for development.

Peter Mehlbye
Director ESPON Coordination Unit

ESPON Spring Event – Workshop on Innovative Visualisation and Cartographic Language

It is the European Year 2009 of Creativity & Innovation! At the ESPON Workshop participants will have the opportunity to exchange experiences and idea about the innovative visualisation of territorial facts and trends. The workshop is open for all interested and will in particular welcome a mix of cartographers, artists, media people, scientists, practitioners and policy makers for a first dialogue on innovative visualisation tools and cartographic language. Reserve your place for the Workshop on 2 April.

ESPON Open Seminar June 2009 – Save the Date!

ESPON is envisaged to address “Regional Development Opportunities in the Global Economic Recession” at the Open Seminar in Prague during the Czech EU Presidency. The Seminar will take place on 3 and 4 June. The Open Seminar will soon be announced on the ESPON website.

Statistics and Roadmap for the Call for Expression of Interest KSS

The Call for Expression of Interest for the Knowledge Support System received altogether 58 applications (deadline was 12 February 2009). The evaluation of applications received is still ongoing. Experts that shall follow the next round of applied research projects will be selected and informed in due time before the start of the respective projects.

Financial Managers Seminar

A Seminar on financial management and administration of projects will take place on 31 March 2009 for financial managers of Lead and Project Partners of approved projects in the second round of calls launched in August 2008. Information about e.g. eligibility rules, programme manual, subsidy contract, reporting and monitoring procedures and requirements will be given, as well as information about administrative, legal and practical matters of relevance concerning project coordination and management.

ESPON Partner Café

The ESPON Partner Café is an opportunity to find partners for setting up Transnational Project Groups aiming at submitting proposals for ESPON projects. 40 institutions from 16 European countries have already taken the opportunity to be included in the overview compiled by ESPON. Your institution can be part of the Partner Café by submitting the “Partner Information Form” available at the ESPON Website. More

ESPON Annual Implementation Report 2007

The Annual Implementation Report of the ESPON 2013 Programme is available at the ESPON Website. The Report summarises the activities implemented by the programme during the respective year and gives further information on projects and programme implementation. More

ESPON participates at the seminar on Territorial Impact of EU policies

The Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment organises an EU seminar on Territorial Impact of EU policies on 5 March 2009 in Amsterdam. The seminar forms part of Action 2.2 of the Action Programme for the Implementation of the EU Territorial Agenda and is to deliver input to the informal Ministerial meeting on territorial cohesion. One of the seminar workshops is dedicated to the policy support ESPON delivers. Prof. Roberto Camagni (Politecnico di Milano) will present the policy support tool that the applied research project ESPON Project TIPTAP - Territorial Impact Package for Transport and Agricultural Policies - is developing. René van der Lecq (ESPON CU) will lead the discussion.

News from the ESPON 2013 Projects

In the framework of the ESPON Project RERISK - Regions at Risk of Energy Poverty - the workshop “Bridging Energy and Spatial Planning in Europe for 2030” will take place in Stockholm on 16 and 17 June 2009. The workshop will be attended on invitation by a panel of four energy experts and four spatial developers/planners as well as an audience of several regional representatives. More

Publications

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, ESPON Contact Point for Netherlands, recently published “A Territorial Impact Assessment of Territorial Cohesion for the Netherlands”. The main author, David Evers, has made use of ESPON research and maps. More

News from URBACT

The Toolkit “URBACT II Local Support Group” is now available for those involved with the URBACT II projects to produce the Local Action Plans which are key part of the Programme. There are three main sections: (1) Information about the URBACT Programme, including the role of Local Support Groups and Local Action Plans; (2) Guidance and tools to help in preparing a Local Action Plan; (3) A resources section providing references to additional useful information sources and a glossary explaining simply the meaning of terms used in this document. The toolkit is available at the URBACT Website

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