ESPON Seminar Aalborg – 13 June 2012

1. ESPON Seminar Aalborg – 13 June 2012 Workshop 2: The role of innovation, attractiveness and creative economy in specific types of regions Erik Gløersen Department ofGeography and Environment UniversityofGeneva

2. The GEOSPECS project • Development opportunities and challengesin specific types of territories: • Mountain areas, • Islands, • Sparsely populated areas, • Outermost regions, • Border regions, • Coastal areas, • Inner peripheries. GEOSPECS categories

3. Policy context Mentionof GEOSPECS areas in EU Treaty(Article 174) EU-Parliament Intergroup Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion 5th Cohesion Report DG REGIO Working paper on areas with geographic specificities (Philippe Monfort, 2009) Regional policy focusing on growth and sustainable development rather than on compensation for handicaps

4. Researchquestion Do geographicspecificities affectthecapacityof a localcommunity or region to be - innovative? - attractive? - creative?

5. Researchquestion Mountain Island Sparsely populated Coastal Border Outermost Well-functioning / unbalanced governance Affluent / Poor Extensive/ limited infrastructure Sluggish / dynamic demography Centrally located / Remote TERRITORY TERRITORY Is this reasonable? “ceteris paribus” Strong / weak identity Highly urbanised / rural Attractive / repulsive climate «Attractive» «Creative» «Innovative»

6. GEOSPECS categories • Identifying the defining features of each category of geographic specificity. • For example, mountains are characterised by: • Specific topography (slopes, altitude) • Harsher climate • Lower population densities & concentration in valleys

7. GEOSPECS categories

8. Mountain areas in Europe Mountain areascan be found in most European countries. There is a great diversity of socio-economic situations, both between and within massifs.

9. Population potentials Number of personswith commuting distance(45 minute) by road

10. Cross-delineation • The table reads as follows: • - Within mountain areas (9th line), 21,3% of the area is also a coastal area (3rd column)

11. Main parameter: access to urban areas Access to urban areas modifies the possibilitiesof implementingstrategies for innovation, attractiveness and creative economy

12. The Alpine range: surrounded by metropolitan areas Proximity to metropolitan regions and large urban regions influences development perspectives for the Alps positively and negatively.

13. Mountains and potentialurbancommuting areas Only a limited part of European mountain areas arewithincommutingdistanceof medium to largecities

14. Mountains and potentialurbancommuting areas The proportionsofmountain areapopulationswithincommutingdistance ofcitiesarequite varied.

15. Attractiveness for tourism

16. Employment in tourism Proximity to metropolitan regions and large urban regions influences development perspectives for the Alps positively and negatively.

17. Attractiveness for tourism

18. Attractiveness for tourism Tourism in coastal areascan be concentratedalong a narrow stripalong the coastline.

19. Climaticattractiveness: sunshine duration

20. Conclusions • It is not generally meaningful to seek to identify statistical correlations between “geographic specificity” and indicators of “attractiveness”, “innovation” or of “creative economy” • The naturallimitations to theemergenceofinnovationclusterscan be compensated by otherfactors • Pro-activepoliciescan be oneofthesefactors • Categoriesofgeographicspecificityareratheruseful as components in the design oftailor-madestrategies for each region or locality