The ESPON seminar aims at discussing “Quality of Life for territorial and citizen-centric policies” bringing together the latest research on the topic and policy challenges.

Improving the Quality of Life is a key objective for policymakers at different scales, and it has become more relevant in the policy agenda along with increasing demands for the participation of citizens in the political process. But how can we measure the quality of life and its impact on policymaking? 

This session presented and discussed territorial development scenarios for the EUSDR and EUSAIR as means to enhance the territorial dimension of the respective EU Strategies and to embed the territorial evidence in policymaking at relevant levels of the countries involved in their implementation. It was also an opportunity to address recommendations on possible policy pathways (policy actions requiring joint attention of the EUDSR and EUSAIR governance bodies and other levels of governance) to steer the development towards the chosen scenarios. 

In this video you can watch a debate with:

Maria Toptsidou, Spatial Foresight (LU)

Lenča Humerca Šolar, Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning (SI)

Mathilde Konstantopoulou, Ministry of Development & Investments (EL)

Robert Lichtner, Danube Strategic Point, EUSDR, (AT)

Wiktor Szydarowski, Director, ESPON EGTC

Moderator: Franziska Sielker, University of Cambridge (UK)

Find links to all the sessions of the seminar and the presentations available to download here

You can read an article by Maria Toptsidou on the same topic in our TerritoriALL magazine