CORDIS

The research project aims to investigate the formation of non-standard regions and the activation of multi-level governance practices induced by EU-led territorial cooperation instruments. It identifies four types of non-standard regions (micro, cross-border, off-shore and macro) that correspond to 4 EU instruments (CLLD, EGTC, maritime spatial planning, and Macro-regional strategy). They constitute a programmatic domain in which the EU is advocating a new regionalism agenda, which is based on the construction of new territorialised polities engaged in regional development and planning actions beyond formal administrative boundaries, from municipal to national ones. These new regional polities present an extensive variety of socio-institutional dynamics, committed to thematic or political objectives, and policy delivery channels. The scope of the project is to evaluate whether the tailoring of these regional polities contribute to address more appropriately socio-ecological regions, to activate cultural-cognitive understanding of new functional territories, to conceive more efficient spatial planning and development strategies. The project investigates one case-study region per each instrument, with a primary attention to two areas: a new micro-region and a cross-border region, which will be evaluated in relation to their overlapping/interaction with off-shore and macro-regions. Moreover, the fellowship poses the basis for a cutting-edge research program that explores the socio-cultural, political and institutional construction of these new territorialised polities; investigates their socio-institutional efficiency; makes explicit the characteristics of a renewed EU-led regionalism agenda; and clarifies the limits and the opportunities that a regionalism agenda on non-standard region has in addressing the challenges of contemporary Europe and its regional dynamics.