The activities launched under the new ESPON 2030 Programme are bundled in Thematic Action Plans (TAPs) to guarantee a coherent approach between territorial studies and tailored knowledge transfer to support policy makers from the EU to the local level. Those activities are guided by the needs of stakeholders, with a focus on the gaps in existing research and innovative approaches. At the same time, they intend to properly address current territorial challenges and anticipate future ones.

TAPs logic

4 TAPs are already open following a broad public consultation in January 2022.

The consultation was open for the following 4 Thematic Action Plans:

1. Adapting to the impacts of climate change
2. Living, working and travelling across borders
3. Smart connectivity
4. European territories in global interactions

The main aim of the Thematic Action Plan consultation process is threefold:

• To raise the awareness of programme stakeholders about the specific thematic workstreams ESPON will be opening to support policymaking;
• To engage in an exchange with policymakers at all levels on the general policy needs that could be addressed and in which way;
• To engage in an exchange with scientists on the state-of-the-art of the existing territorial research in the related fields of each TAP and to collect a wide range of proposals for programme research activities to ensure the relevance and added value of ESPON evidence production

The consultation process was open to everyone -until 1 March 2023. Open consultations are the time for you to comment or propose anything you find relevant and help us shape the future of European research on territorial development

For sending your written contribution (short or long, questions or proposals, bullet points or plain texts, articles...), there is a unique email address : [email protected].

Interested in being even more active in this process? You can write a short article for our blog, we will be happy to host it on our website.

The received feedback has been summed up in a consultation report which you can find below. The four Thematic Action Plans will be submitted for decision by the ESPON 2030 Monitoring Committee in June 2023.