Forschungsabteilung 1
ESPON 2.4.2
Integrated Analysis of Transnational and National
Territories Based on ESPON Results
An international research project funded by the European Commission under the framework of the ESPON 2006 Programme within the Policy Impact Studies under strand 2
Duration: November 2004 to December 2006
The Issue
Within the framework of the ESPON 2006 Programme, ESPON project 2.4.2 was concerned with a comprehensive investigation of the development of spatial trends in the EU 25 plus Bulgaria and Romania and including Norway and Switzerland as non-EU ESPON countries. This analysis was part of the policy impact strand, however, it aimed at an integration of the broad variety of analyses undertaken in the ESPON 2006 Programme while strongly differentiating between different spatial levels at which above objectives could be measured.
The Project
This project aimed at the analysis of different territorial contexts and related specific regional weaknesses and opportunities in order to satisfy the different spatial demands of above mentioned objectives. The respective analyses of this project focussed on three different spatial levels, i.e. the European level, the transnational level and the national/regional level. In addition, the project provided an integrated and structured analysis of the results achieved by all other – at that time – ongoing and already finalised ESPON projects. In this sense, ESPON project 2.4.2 had a particular integrative character allowing for cross-sectoral insights and thus held a very specific position in the ESPON 2006 Programme.
For the European level ESPON project 2.4.2 developed several integrated spatial patterns, such as Global Integration Zones, Lisbon situation and labour market situation, utilising multi-method approaches. For the transnational level a division of Europe for a variety of themes has been developed and mirrored with actual patterns of transnational cooperation. The national and regional level was finally approached by zooming into the national spatial features previously only analysed from a European perspective and by an analyses of the coherence between the identified spatial development patterns and national policy approaches. The latter included fact sheets as well as more extensive country studies on all countries under investigation.
The final report with all main results is available at http://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_ESPON2006Projects/
Menu_PolicyImpactProjects/zoomin.html
The Partnership
The project brings together partners from different areas of research, such as spatial planning, economics, geography, sociology, political science and regional policy. The trans-national project group consists of the following institutions:
- Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) – Germany (Coordinator)
- Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS) – Germany
- Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning (ÖIR) – Austria
- Institute for Urban Environment and Human Resources (UEHR) – Greece
- Centre for European Regional and Local Studies, Warsaw University (EUROREG) – Poland
- BIC Lazio – Italy
- Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) – Norway
- Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia (UPIRS) – Slovenia
- Instituto Interuniversitario de Desarrollo Local (IIDL) – Spain
- PhDP consultant – Belgium
Kick-off meeting in
Erkner,
November 25th 2004
Contact at the IRS
Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Kujath
Phone +49-3362/793-159
e-mail: kujathh_at_irs-net.de
Dr. Sabine Zillmer
Phone +49-3362-793-186
e-mail: zillmers_at_irs-net.de
