Territorial Impact Assessment

This book presents a comprehensive debate and analysis of existing Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) methodologies, designed under the auspices of the ESPON programme since the mid-2000s. This is intended to serve as a TIA handbook for the reader, to better understand the main differences, advantages and shortcomings of each presented TIA methodology. It also serves as a manual for professors and students in the field of policy evaluation, and territorial analysis, as it presents concrete examples of the implementation of each TIA methodology, their formulas and intrinsic evaluation elements. The purpose of policy evaluation methodologies is to check the main effects of private and public investments, in order to report back to policymakers and citizens on their efficiency and effectiveness. Over the past decades, both in Europe and worldwide, there has been an increasingly awareness of the need to implement/reinforce policy evaluation practices, at all territorial levels. At the same time, it has become widely accepted that many policy interventions produce impacts in more than one dimensions of territorial development. In this context, the use of a holistic and territorial approach for policy impact assessment evaluation has rapidly been adopted by the European Commission as a mainstream policy evaluation procedure.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event for the European Union (EU). While, throughout history, there has been a number of pandemics, national economies were however not as intertwined as they are today. The measures taken by EU Member States to contain the spread of the pandemic have considerably impacted supply chains and markets throughout the Union. Furthermore, for the first time, the enacted lockdown measures1 severely impeded professional and private life of citizens. The initial measures implemented by the Member States and the EU institutions to contain the pandemic have exerted a strong influence on the European regions, differing widely based on several factors, such as regional demography or employment structure. Part 1 of this file note presents information on the spread of the pandemic and the regional distribution of indicators, e.g. case numbers and the capacity of healthcare systems to cope with the cases. Existing studies on the territorial impact are reviewed and building on these insights, key indicators to depict the sensitivity of a region towards the influence of the pandemic are identified. This serves as a basis to conduct a Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) along the ESPON TIA Quick Check methodology in an interactive workshop session. Part 2 of the file note presents the results of the conducted TIA workshop, including the documentation of discussions between experts, the created impact maps as well as the formulated recommendations and policy proposals.

This book examines the ‘territorial dimension’ of EU Cohesion Policy, specifically assessing territorial impacts at the various spatial levels, engaging theoretically and empirically with the notion and role of the ‘territorial dimension’ within a strongly fragmented EU policymaking process.

Driven by European Union policy challenges, this cutting-edge book focuses upon the Regional Innovation Impact (RII) of universities, to analyse the socioeconomic impact that universities in Europe have on their hometowns, metropolitan areas and regions.

This book fills an existing academic literature gap by providing a sound and synthetic analysis on the process of European Territorial Cooperation over the last 30 years. This follows from the support from the former EU INTERREG Community Initiative, since 1989, later transformed into the second main goal of EU Cohesion Policy, by 2007: European Territorial Cooperation - ECT. In order to present the ECT process in a more comprehensive manner, and to be the main literature reference regarding this process in the decades to come, this book is divided into four different sections and 12 chapters. The first section summarizes the main impacts and added-value from ETC experiences while proposing the elevation of the ETC goals within EU Cohesion Policies. The second section addresses the process of cross-border cooperation, and namely its impact in reducing border obstacles and supporting ever growing number of cross-border entities. The third section elaborates on the second most important ETC process (transnational cooperation) with a similar approach. Finally, a last section debates the future scenarios for this process in Europe.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of several urban related aspects that are of central importance to successful territorial cohesion processes. In essence, it sheds new light on issues concerning urban polycentrism, functional urban regions, integrated sustainable urban development, and the EU Urban Agenda; and on how they can help to achieve territorial cohesion policy goals. As an elusive and fairly recent concept, territorial cohesion has to date only been vaguely debated in the available literature, which for the most part focuses on its historical origins and its relevance for EU policymaking. Instead, this book synthesizes, for the first time, a range of perspectives that place urban elements and policies at the core of territorial cohesion analysis. As such, and given the fact that territorial cohesion is a holistic concept, the book will appeal to a broad readership from both the academic and policymaking arenas.

This book presents a series of studies on the socio-economic impacts of tourism, with a special focus on the determinants of tourism competitiveness at the destination level. The authors offer a systematic overview of this important issue, presenting relevant empirical studies from different parts of the world, based on modern theoretical approaches and adequate analysis tools, in the context of their policy or managerial implications. The first part of the book discusses the analysis and assessment of quantitative tourism impacts on local economies, while the second part focuses on non-material aspects of tourism development, in particular those related to the role of innovation and human resources. The final section highlights the different dynamics often observed in tourism destinations arising from the interaction between tourists and local communities.