Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TREND (Transition with Resilience for Evolutionary Development)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-06-01 bis 2022-01-31
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).
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).
The methodological framework applies a spatial-led approach in conceiving Transition Management as keen strategical progress to translate the combination (Resilience, Diversification, Evolutionary Theory) into policy design and implementation. The research activities are based on building the logical framework to introduce the metrics concerning Resilience and TM and to search a set of indicators for measuring urban/territorial resilience and low-carbon transition trends.
Regional and Local dimensions are both crucial for the investigation because of the following factors:
• The need for a different policy and institutional focus able to respond rapidly and flexibly to technological, market and social changes;
• The need to develop policy support to be integrated, coordinated and tailored to specific national, regional or even local contexts.
• The need for differentiated (place-based) strategies for the adaptation to specific shocks.
Particularly, cities offer the opportunity to scale up resilience at the regional level, offering coordination, integration and context-specific responses.
Regional and Local dimensions are both crucial for the investigation because of the following factors:
• The need for a different policy and institutional focus able to respond rapidly and flexibly to technological, market and social changes;
• The need to develop policy support to be integrated, coordinated and tailored to specific national, regional or even local contexts.
• The need for differentiated (place-based) strategies for the adaptation to specific shocks.
Particularly, cities offer the opportunity to scale up resilience at the regional level, offering coordination, integration and context-specific responses.
The first objective of the TREnD project is to provide a frame of reference for linking together Resilience and Post Carbon Transition in the Evolutionary framework and to search for a set of indicators for measuring urban resilience and low-carbon transition trends. Both the topics were already mainstreamed in academic and political debates –particularly concerning climate change - but their relevance increased even further with the emergence of the Covid19 crisis, as it at once tested the resilience of urban systems and pushed post-carbon transition into the centre of economic recovery proposals. The TREND project moves inside the European innovation policy, namely Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) to drive the society towards a knowledge economy. The S3 concept was developed at a European level and introduced during the 2014-2020 programming period. As part of Europe 2020, the smart specialization strategy was conceived to come out of the 2008 crisis permanently. The contribution that S3 intended to make for this overall objective of the transformation of the European economic system was to promote the constitution of a real innovation and competitiveness chain, capable of transforming the results of research and innovation into a competitive advantage and an effective increase in the well-being of citizens. The Trend project formulates new approaches in designing S3 in a post2020 scenario concerning evolutionary theory and the need to make territories more responsive to continuous shocks. The introduction of the spatial dimension in managing transition through technological diversification lies in the consideration that Regions and cities’ ability to adapt and respond to external shocks and, hence, manage the transition, is crucial for a more inclusive development trajectory (How S3 can be more inclusive). Furthermore, the need to promote and empower a different regional – and sub-regional - development based on the place-sensitive approach that merges the people-based and place-based into a new vision aimed at empowering Distributed Development Strategies where “economic development strategies need to be adaptive and to maximise the diversity of people, firms and places involved”(the multidimensional and multi-scalar aspect of regional diversification).