Science in support of European Territorial Development and Cohesion

February 2014 – One of the objectives of the ESPON Programme is to support the European wide research community in the field of European territorial science and to involve a wide European network of scientists and practitioners in the field of territorial research and its related fields. A large involvement is indispensable to get high qualified research capacity in ESPON projects and at the same time to increase interest and competences in research on European territorial structures, trends, perspectives and impacts of EU sector policy.

The ESPON Programme has hitherto promoted the scientific component of the programme through scientific conferences and workshops, cooperation with European organisations in the fields of regional science, geography and spatial planning, as well as with a dedicated series of ESPON reports mainly targeting the scientific community.

This second ESPON 2013 Scientific Report presents papers from both ESPON projects and authors from several European professional and academic organisations. The report is the result of the ESPON Scientific Conference “Science in support of European Territorial Development and Cohesion” held on the 12th and 13th of September 2013 in Luxembourg.

This Report contains 34 scientific papers, prepared by researchers involved in ESPON projects and authors from the European professional and academic organisations AESOP, ECTPCEU, ERSA, EUGEO and RSA. The papers were presented and discussed during the conference workshop sessions.

A third ESPON 2013 Scientific Report is planned for end 2014 taking stock of the progress ESPON projects made in the scientific field of territorial development and cohesion.