A European Territorial Research Community

University of Luxembourg 13-14 October 2005

Linking Territorial Research and Practice: An agenda for the future

Cliff Hague

Towards a European Research and Practice AgendaBefore...

Towards a European Research

and Practice

Agenda!!!

Feeding research results into policy processes

• Goal: “absorption” of research results (out of 5)– by Direct. General for Spatial Policy +++– by other departments ++– by other government levels +

• Means: raise issues– Are the data reliable, in line with our own

data?– Do the concepts match or contradict? – Are the policy recommandations in line with

national policies?– Do they enhance or weaken our position?

Knowledge and Power in Territorial Research

• Space – geographical positioning• Territory – governance of space

• Scales – from nation states to ‘glocalisation’

• Networks – who is connected and who is excluded?

• Institutions – organisations, rules, ethos

The shaping of ESPON

• The Commission, its Directorates and the Member States – the European project of building consensus amongst policy elites

• This model was rejected in 2005 referenda

• From land use planning to spatial planning and now territorial cohesion (from ESPON to ETCON?)

Contested concepts are sanitised

• Conflicts are subsumed into ambiguous concepts as a basis for agreement

• Lawyers and bureaucrats codify those concepts and define the rationality and legitimacy of practices

• Research provides the information base to operate the concepts

Territorial research practice in ESPON

• Prime emphasis on the European Scale – 29 countries

• Limited attention to neighbouring countries and to ‘Europe in the World’

• Limited focus on intra-regional or urban scale; exclusion of intra-urban analysis

• Wider territorial research community needs to fill the gaps

Territorial research practice in ESPON

• Development and mapping of indicators and typologies

• Data limitations• ‘Snapshot’ rather than process• Concepts demonstrated and

made operational• Role for the wider territorial

research community is scrutiny and critical assessment

Some areas for debate

• Deconstruct ‘territorial cohesion’ – who defines its meaning and how?

• Can competitiveness and cohesion be reconciled in territorial practice?

• From standardised infrastructure provision by governments to markets and choice – what are the territorial impacts and opportunities?

Social Cohesion and Diversity: Good Practice

• Delivering equality of opportunity requires an understanding and valuing of diversity

• Equality and diversity need to be ‘mainstream’ concerns in an organisation and its codes of practice

• Organisational cultures can create institutional discrimination

• Outreach and positive action are needed to counter disadvantage

• Information collection, consultation, policy evaluation and monitoring

Policy analysis and practice

• The territorial research community needs to provide support for territorial policy – but subject territorial policy to critical review

• What are the aims? Whose aims are they? What are the relations between aims, means and implementation?

• What are the unintended side-effects? What happens if no action is taken? Is it the policy – or other factors – that creates the output?

INTERREG

• Practice in INTERREG projects can benefit from stronger inputs from the territorial research community – yet is also an under-researched area

• Concern that INTERREG IV will become very topic based – and lose the integrative aspect that is vital to spatial planning

Connecting territorial research to the practice community

• Spatial planning practice in most countries is pragmatic and reactive to problems, rather than evidence-based policy-making

• ‘User-friendly’ interface with national, regional and local governments to make the connections

• Scope for ‘laboratory regions’?

Models of research influencing policy and practice

• Data collection and interpretation to reveal patterns, causes and remedies – e.g. public health movement in the 19th century

• Popular text that influences public opinion and the policy environment – e.g. “Silent Spring”

• Contesting paradigms at a time of crisis – e.g. Keynes / ‘the boys from Chicago’

• Socialisation of professionals through research-led teaching

Towards an innovative research and practice relation

• Innovation as a spiral of collective learning involving users rather than a straight line from laboratory to product

• Importance of tacit understanding and networks that can access knowledge from outside the organisation

• ESPON as a catalyst to build identity and strengthen networks and connections within the European territorial research community

Summary

• The territorial dimension of policy is weakly developed and still contested

• ESPON is a major achievement • Territorial research needs to probe

and make more robust key consensual concepts such as ‘territorial cohesion’ and ‘polycentric development’

• Stronger links can be made to policy and practice and the wider territorial research community