Territorial Performance Monitoring(ESPON TPM project)

Outline

General approach & AimStructure: quantitative & qualitative analysisMind mapRoad mapGeneral (methodological) considerations

Stakeholders• ESPON priority 2

• Five regions:• Flanders (lead stakeholder)• North Rhine-Westphalia• Navarre• Catalunia• Greatest Dublin Area

Project team

• Lead Partner: IGEAT - Institut de Gestion de l'Environnement et d'Aménagement du Territoire - ULB

• Research partner for each region:• Catalunia: Institut d'Estudis Territorial

• Navarra: Navarra de Suelo Residencial

• Greater Dublin Region: National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis – University Maynooth

• Nordrhein-Westfalen: Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung

• Flanders: Planning & Development Research group, ASRO – KULeuven (+ coordination of qualitative analysis)

ESPON TPM project• The ESPON Territorial Performance Monitoring (TPM)

project addressed two main lines of work:

a general assessment and development of tools for regional monitoring of challenges defined at other scales

the practical application of the tools and ideas for monitoring the five stakeholder regions involved in the project

ESPON TPM projectThe aim of this project

(not to provide some form of “Dummy's guide to monitoring”) a reflection on the issue of translating European challenges

into regional realitiesa mean to assess the current monitoring practices in regionsan exchange of best practices between stakeholder regions

based on their monitoring experiencea laboratory to elaborate and test different techniques and

tools for monitoring

A particular issue brought forward by the stakeholders was the integration of qualitative information into a fields generally dominated by quantitative measurement.

Perception and levers identified in stakeholder regions

– Demography• manage impacts of external immigration and

ageing– Climate change

• technically managing impacts of climate change

– New energy paradigm• objectives determined at European level and

on policies implemented at national level– Globalisation

• most regions quite autonomous to include relevant policies

Challenges

MethodsQuantitative

Generalisation/coverageMajor differences

Statistical relationshipsgeneralisable results

Limited set of questions

Simplification of realityhard, objective, numeric data

ObjectivityStatistically sound methods

Objective data sets allow generalisations

Qualitative

Exploration/depthRestict data collection

more in-depth examinationless generalisable (based on a smaller group

of involved persons)

Complexityinformal approaches to capture differences

- holistic approach

InterpretationInterpretation processes

Risk of being “just a bit more than organised common sense”

Combined methodology

• Quantitative measures

Simple benchmarking with or without comparison with the EU

(ESPON 5-level approach)

+ interpretation, contextualization, ...

• Qualitative assessment

Based on expertise, surveys, delphi, focus groups ...

Possibly elaboration of pseudo-quantitative indicators

Global challengesMind Map

Demography

Globalisation

Energy

Climate change

General structure of the project

Qualitative analysis: appraisal questions• Awareness of the challenge (per challenge)• Explicitly/implicitly addressed• Discourses, forcasting capacity

• Planning context and resilience of the Planning System• Strategic capacity (vision and implementation)• Coordination, cooperation & participation• Monitoring capacity

• Effectiveness of policy approach(es)• Policy bundles• Encompassing strategy? Whose competences?

(policy level)• Coordination capacities

• Threats – Opportunities

Structure of the qualitative analysis• Desktop analysis done by the

different project partners;

• Two-step procedure of involvement of stakeholders:

1. questionnaire / semi-structured interviews;

2. feedback on first outcomes. Different techniques can be tested (focus group, or simple singular feedback from the stakeholders, ranking technique, etc)

quantitative analysis

Identification of crucial and contradicting aspects

Second round of stakeholders’ involvement

Final Reports(Set of ranked items)

Analysis of documents

Questionnaire and / or semi-structured interviews

Researchers Stakeholders

From the mind map to a tailor-made set of indicators

Discussion with each stakeholderIdentification of specific indicatorsConfrontation about the regional perception of the challenges

Toward tailor-made tools

EU-wide quantitative benchmarking HyperAtlas

EU-wide quantitative benchmarking: TPM Tools

indicators reflecting a situation and its evolution, but on which the territorial level considered – here mostly the regions – has no influence

indicators reflecting supra-regional constraints for which the regions may have to implement policies established on a larger scale, sometimes even at the expense of their own short-term interests

another version of the previous type consists in indicators reflecting constraints and policies present on supra-regional scales, for which a measurement on the regional scale is not necessarily relevant, but which can reflect the pursuit of other objectives

indicators reflecting regional situations on which regional authorities can actually have some influence through their own policies.

indicators that do not reflect regional realities, but rather the implementation of policies

Indicators

Outcome and general recommendations

Regional monitoring tools• Regions that have adopted the TPM indicators• Regions that have embedded the TPM experience in

their own monitoring activity/activities and adapted to the regional characteristics/needs

• Regions that have implemented the monitoring activities at lower level (differences within the regions)

Ideal (technocratic) model

Methodological recommendations

Conditions of success of monitoring in regional policy making:

• integration of monitoring system into clear/explicit vision

• clearly defined procedures on how to react to findings of the monitoring system

• sufficient resources for continuous update and maintenance

• shared ownership• a continuous “surveillance” of European policy

discussions and documents • relative political “neutrality” of monitoring system• long-term commitment to the monitoring process• permanent fora of contact with relevant experts

Methodological recommendations

What can ESPON do to support monitoring efforts in regions ?

Thematic research, including elaboration of innovative indicators and typologies

Continuous development of tools such as the ESPON Database and the ESPON HyperAtlas

Sustained maintenance of datasets, tailored to specific challenges, and specific European objectives

Methodological recommendations

Thank youloris.servillo@asro.kuleuven.be