Discontent, Division, Disparities, Divides. Those are the four "Ds" characterising the spatial megatrends in Europe today, according to the ESPON findings, as presented by the director of ESPON, Mr Wiktor Szydarowski, at the European Summit of regions and cities, in Marseille.

Large lake regions are confronted with a challenging situation: while the lake and surrounding areas would benefit from integrated management, they are often shared between regions or countries. Stakeholders from large lake regions have therefore developed a great variety of governance arrangements and initiatives to overcome challenges arising from fragmentation.

This online workshop will grasp the rising demand for second homes and increasing multi-locationality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nordic countries and discuss the Finnish context in more depth.

Disconnected from the mainland, urban-maritime regions that are island face different challenges than regions situated on the mainland. This also goes for Malta and Crete, two of the stakeholder regions that were part of the ERMES project. This article discusses the downsides and benefits of insular regions in relation to eco-cluster development.

The ESPON LAKES project organises a European roundtable on Integrated Territorial Development in large lake regions.

Research conducted for ESPON has identified four global trends that will significantly change the way European seaports operate in 10 years from now. These trends will not only influence the seaports themselves but will also provide opportunities and challenges for the urban-maritime region where they are located.

As part of its post-2010 biodiversity policy, the European Commission promoted a strategy for an EU-wide Green Infrastructure (GI) with the aim to provide a framework for integrating GI into sectoral policies, including nature conservation. The underlying idea of this initiative is the recognition of the environment as an infrastructural resource capable of delivering a wide range of ecosystem services.

Regions, cities, and rural areas across Europe and within countries are facing different challenges and opportunities concerning shrinkage. The diversity of processes that determine those challenges and opportunities, depends on the pathways of economic restructuring, on the resilience of local public services and on local initiatives. 

Following their initial agreement on the content of the ESPON 2030 programme as a prerequisite for the submission of the programme to the European Commission for