Current EU policies aim to support regional research, development, and innovation activities. The Cohesion Policy, implemented through Structural Funds (SFs) Operational Programmes, seeks to foster ...local level innovation. In parallel, universities have become important drivers of regional development through their ‘third mission’ driven by the different policy levels. This article investigates the tensions between the primary institutional logics of the university and the institutional logic of the SF programmes in peripheral regions as experienced by a multi-disciplinary university network from Finland. The findings from the case study reveal competing and co-evolving institutional logics of the two frameworks; university-led SF activities increase collaboration with local stakeholders, but the implementation of SF projects remains challenging (e.g. strict guidelines, higher education (HE) policies driving research excellence). Further investigation of these results in different regional contexts could provide new tools for managing the university third mission more efficiently, through SF programmes and beyond.
Increasing regional differentiation and discontent in Europe have directed critical attention to European territorial cohesion policy and the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Fund) ...mechanism. There is wide literature investigating macro-level processes of regional differentiation and cohesion as well as the efficiency of multi-level governance in the implementation of the funding mechanism. This study contributes to the existing multidisciplinary literature on cohesion policy and structural funds by extending an understanding of the ESI Funds system to a local agency perspective with a specific focus on Finnish municipalities and the programme period 2014-2020, characterized by austerity policies, regional discontent and disagreement between the ESI programme regions. The examination offers a new understanding of local agents and beneficiaries' differential access in the ESI Funds, showing that the agency of municipalities in the ESI Funds is simultaneously enabled and constrained by the multilevel Structural Funds programme's areas of specialization, national regional policies, partnerships and the local environment. The findings indicate that generating inclusive and equal possibilities for all municipalities would necessitate more attention to the allocation of ESI Funds within the programme regions, not just between them.
Europeanisation situates local governments in a constantly changing environment, bringing challenges, opportunities, and constraints. These circumstances raise the question, how local authorities ...adapt to the process of European integration, face its challenges, and use its diverse opportunity structures. The article explores four dimensions, through which Europeanisation hits the ground of local government: downloading, uploading, dissemination, and horizontal networking. It examines the distribution of different types of Europe-related activities at the local level using data from a survey sent to all 396 independent cities, towns, and municipalities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Our empirical analysis provides an overview of the most and least frequent Europe-related activities within the different types of local authorities. The findings of our multivariate analysis shows that next to the direct affectedness by Europeanisation, the municipalities' capacities in terms of financial and institutional resources have a major influence on their efforts towards Europe.
With the prospective exit of the UK from the European Union (EU), a crucial question is whether EU Structural Funds have been beneficial for the country and which aspects of Cohesion Policy should be ...maintained if EU funds are to be replaced. This paper addresses this question through a twofold investigation, assessing not only whether but also how EU funds have contributed to regional growth in the UK from 1994 to 2013. It documents a significant and robust effect of Cohesion Policy in the UK, with higher proportions of Structural Funds associated with higher economic growth both on the whole and particularly in the less developed regions of the country. In addition, it is shown that the strategic orientation of investments also plays a distinct role for regional growth. While concentration of investments on specific pillars seems to have no direct growth effects, unless regions can rely on pre-existing competitive advantages in key development areas, clear evidence is unveiled that targeting investments to specific areas of relative regional need has a significant and autonomous effect on growth. These findings have important implications for the design of regional policy interventions in Britain after Brexit.
This article contributes to existing debates on public opinion toward European integration by examining when and why fiscal transfers and public support are systematically related. Drawing on ...economic and identity-related theories, we develop and test hypotheses about the links between European Union fiscal transfers among countries and subnational jurisdictions, and citizens’ support for European integration. Using a three-level analysis of residents in 143 regions in 16 European Union member states, we find a positive effect of European Union transfers among both countries and subnational jurisdictions on support for European integration among those with a European communal identity. We also find that this effect increases the more politically aware individuals are. The article sketches the broader implications of our findings for public opinion research on regional integration beyond the European Union.
The strategic role of tourism sector and its considerable contribution to economic development, employment, social and environmental sustainability is acknowledged by all decision making bodies, from ...world wide tourism associations (World Tourism Organization – WTO) to national, regional and local communities. The current article analyses the direct contribution that European structural funds had on the development of tourism infrastructure in Gorj County over the past 12 years. The data used for the research covers the pre-accession funds allocation (SAPARD Programme), the investments in tourism infrastructure from 2007 – 2013 financial programming framework as well as the current 2014 – 2020 programming framework - finalised tourism projects. The main conclusion that emerges form the research is that European structural funds greatly contributed to the development of tourism infrastructure both in quantity as well as in quality and diversity.
Subject and purpose of work: The objectives of the elaboration are the following: 1) to analyze the regional changes (at the level of poviats) in the number of farms involved in milk production over ...the period 2002-2010; 2) to present the main factors affecting the ongoing changes in Polish farms oriented at milk production; 3) to determine the impact of the measure 121. “Modernization of agricultural holdings” under the RDP 2007-2013 and the applied system of direct subsidies for the development of farms oriented at milk production. Materials and methods: The work has been prepared on the basis of the analysis and synthesis of the source literature, statistical data collected and the author’s own reflections. Results: In Poland, in the years 2002-2010 there was a distinct regional differentiation in the pace of the ongoing changes in the dairy sector. The regions, where we observe the development of milk production, include almost the entire Podlaskie Province, the northern part of the Mazowieckie Province and the south-eastern part of the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Province. Conclusions: Within the RDP 2007-2013, significant funds were allocated to support the modernization of agricultural farms. Mainly under the measure 121 “Modernization of agricultural holdings” the investments were carried out in relation to the purchase of mobile equipment, they represented 89% of all investments. This was partly due to the actual demand and administrative procedures that stimulated these types of investments.
We assess the impact of regional policies on the economies of the 20 Italian regions for the period 1994-2016. We adopt a control function approach incorporating the funds' allocation rules and ...ascertain the impact of various policy funds in four sectors (agriculture, industry, construction and services) through a multi-input multi-output transformation function. We find that European Structural and Investment Funds have a significant impact on various sectoral components of regional gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) playing the strongest role. Nationally funded regional policies do not have an aggregate impact but affect the sectoral composition of GDP.
Many academic papers have looked at the economic effects of the EU cohesion policy, which still remain an open empirical issue. The focus of the most recent literature has been on the heterogeneous ...effects of the policy and the identification of regional conditioning factors. However, most of the existing studies generally assume slope homogeneity for different cross‐sectional units (i.e., regions) and they estimate the average effects of the policy for all the European regions and/or selected groups of regions. Past works also employ data covering few programming periods. This paper has two main goals. First, we study the heterogeneous consequences of EU cohesion policy on regional economic growth in Europe over the past three decades, by applying a heterogeneous coefficient approach to new panel‐time series data. We calculate the region‐specific effects of the policy in terms of long‐run gross domestic product growth. Second, we study regional differences in terms of policy effects depending on the level of assistance received by the regions. We make a distinction among cases of effective, ineffective, trigger and marginal policy. We also document that the effectiveness of EU cohesion policy in the long run can be explained by some of the key factors used in the literature. Finally, we discuss the need for ineffective cases to learn from effective and trigger ones.
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