News - 26 October 2016

ESPON Seminar "Where are European cities heading? Evidence for better policy-making"

Bratislava, 7-8 December 2016 - The objective of the event, which is organized in cooperation with the EU Presidency of Slovakia, is to promote the use of ESPON territorial evidence in policy-making by bringing together and facilitating the dialogue among key stakeholders and scientists.

The agenda of the first day will be focused around the topic of urban development. It will be introduced by presentations on the most recent trends in the development of cities and followed by parallel policy-labs engaging policy-makers and researchers in a debate on the policy needs and possible measures to promote sustainable and inclusive cities, as well as urban-rural partnerships.The afternoon of the first day and the second day will be devoted to promoting the use of ESPON tools, creating new partnerships for targeted analyses and designing the content of next activities together with key stakeholders.

Stakeholders Café - In order to bring forward and explore the experiences of stakeholders in designing targeted analyses and in applying their outcomes in policy-making, the ESPON EGTC has designed a special session, “ESPON on your demand: targeted analyses approach” which includes a Stakeholder Café, offering a platform for exchange, debate and networking. To facilitate the creation of groups with similar interests at the Café session, we invite participants to fill in a short questionnaire.

Deadline to register: Wednesday 23 November 2016 at 15h00. Programme and registration.

Policy Briefs

“Polycentric Territorial Structures and Territorial Cooperation” - Policy-makers at different scales should strive for increasing flows and interactions among places in order to boost their competitiveness and bring more benefits to their inhabitants through combining existing assets and resources.

Making Europe more polycentric requires taking strategic advantage of existing regional diversity and further strengthening territorial cooperation and governance in order to target investments and reduce regional disparities.

Download the ESPON Policy Brief “Polycentric Territorial Structures and Territorial Cooperation

“Pathways to a circular economy in cities and regions” - In times of decreasing resources and growing responsibilities, a transition to a circular economy is both a necessity and an opportunity for cities and regions, with the potential to offer long-lasting economic, environmental and social benefits. Many local and regional authorities are already making efforts towards a more circular economy.

Based on concrete local and regional examples, ESPON, Interact, Interreg Europe and URBACT have produced a policy brief outlining pathways to a circular economy in cities and regions.

Download the Policy Brief “Pathways to a circular economy in cities and regions” at the ESPON Website.

Calls for Tenders

e-Tendering Platform - The ESPON EGTC implements its activities through public procurement calls and service contracts, in line with EU and national legislations and the basic principles of transparency, equal treatment, non-discrimination and widest competition.

The ESPON EGTC has developed an e-tendering platform which allows access to Calls for Tenders and related documentation such as technical specifications, annexes, questions and answers.

The registration process is easy, open to everybody and only very basic information is needed. Further information.

Open Calls

1. ESPON 2020 Database Portal - The service contract resulting from this call shall further develop, maintain and give access to a ESPON Database Portal that can store different types of data and data-related functionalities. The maximum available budget is 700.000,00 EUR, exclusive of VAT. Deadline is 7 November 2016 at 16:00.

2. Senior Scientific Quality Management (re-launched) - The ESPON EGTC is seeking to contract Senior Scientific Quality Management to provide scientific advisory support. The maximum available budget is 300.000,00 EUR exclusive of VAT. Deadline is 7 November 2016 at 16:00.

3. Provision of Copy Machines - Deadline for the submission of the offers is 7 November 2016 at 14:30.

4. ESPON TIA Tool Upgrade - The main outcome of this call should be an upgraded and updated ESPON TIA Tool that gives policy makers and practitioners support with identifying, ex-ante, potential territorial impacts of new EU Legislations, Policies and Directives. The maximum available budget is 200.000,00 EUR exclusive of VAT. Deadline is 05 December 2016 at 10:00.

Further information.

ESPON Targeted Analyses

why, what, for whom, by when? - In the 14 years since its inception, ESPON has provided research, evidence, observations, tailor made analyses and tools to a wide range of stakeholders. During the previous Programme, 23 targeted analyses have been conducted following the demand of more than 100 stakeholders to compare their regions, cities, territories and include a European perspective into policy-making. In the current programming period, already 38 stakeholders have successfully submitted their project ideas, which are implemented as 6 new targeted analyses.

With the objective of contributing to policy demands and development strategies with tailor-made territorial evidence, ESPON offers the opportunity to bring in the European perspective into policy and programming processes with its Targeted Analyses.

Who can apply? National, regional and local bodies, European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation having competence in developing and/or implementing policies with a territorial dimension; Managing Authorities, joint secretariats and European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation responsible for implementing EU funded programmes for transnational, crossborder or macro-regional areas.

Twice per year the ESPON EGTC evaluates the proposals received by certain cut-off dates; the next cut-off date to submit proposals is on 13 January 2017.

Further information.