The widening of territorial disparities remains a major concern in the political and academic debate in the European Union (EU). Recent evidence indicates how growing territorial divergences are increasingly jeopardizing social cohesion, fueling political instability and rising populist waves. Technological progress and the associated new geography of knowledge reveal how disparities between and within (core vs periphery) regions are increasing. A growing literature advocates a reform of the current place-based approach to regional development, which is no longer effective, especially for peripheral areas. The economic integration process, both regionally and globally, has favoured agglomeration economies, fueling the concentration of higher-level economic activities and services in major cities. This effect is seemingly intensified with the rise of high tech-led innovation, leading to a new geography of knowledge more concentrated in metropolitan areas. Whereas knowledge is an increasingly critical dimension of competitive advantage, its concentration in core areas - where productivity rises thanks to the concentration of skilled labour forces, companies and capitals - hinders the innovation diffusion process. This results in a “new landscape” of regional disparities characterized by not only inter-regional but intra-regional divergences. Conversely, innovation diffusion can act as a driver of industrial renewal and productivity growth, helping regions in industrial transition “catch up” with the more productive core/advanced areas. Harnessing globalization, addressing industrial change, embracing innovation and digitalization, managing migration in the long run and fighting climate change define the global challenges across distinctive features and conditions of places able to respond according to local needs.
The current period of global uncertainty is calling into question the essence of the economic prosperity followed in the last decades. The continuing and progressive changes due to the systemic impact of shocks and stresses at the global level pointed out the need for a convergence of efforts by all countries. The scenario that emerged during the outbreak, alongside climate change and the risks associated with it, has seriously questioned social-economic stability at each level and the confluence of institutions in multilevel governance processes Considering the two pressing crises to tackle, namely, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, transformative development is gaining increasing momentum. The rationale is, social and economic transformations are critical to addressing both structural political-economic conditions and “unruly” contingent, complex and context-specific processes, thereby leading to sustainable, inclusive and resilient development.
The overall objective of TREnD is to contribute to reforming the Cohesion Policy for the programming period 2021-2027 in strengthening the regional capabilities towards shock-absorb development trajectories. The TREnD project’s rationale is to provide the critical mass to featuring metrics of Resilience and Transition Management. The project proposes the path reshaping process methodology grounded on a system of three drivers, allowing the structuring of the platform OPEnAT (based on data science and data analytics): 1. Resilience as the capacity of a local context to develop a new growth path; 2. Transition as the strategic process towards a resilience-based policy-mix; 3. Local/urban Innovation ecosystem as a medium to implement transition policy action. The challenges are twofold, the former related to the post-pandemic scenario; the latter to the cross-domain de-carbonization target (Recovery Fund). The focus is on urban-rural networks and innovation ecosystems to make economies more cohesive to meet the challenges of high uncertainty (resilience oriented) and more innovative to face the cross-domain de-carbonization target (transition oriented).
