27 Publications
The Nordic Cooperation Programme for Regional Development and Planning 2017-2020
With this document, Nordregio provides a final status of the professional work for the activities across and within the Thematic Groups after four years and three months of the Nordic Cooperation Programme for Regional Development and Planning (NCP-RDP). In this final report, one will find an overview of the projects carried out by each TG, including a brief abstract of achieved results. Links to further details are provided for each of the projects.
2021 May
- Other publications
- Cross-border
- Nordic Region
- Arctic issues
- Bioeconomy
- Covid-19
- Digitalisation
- Finance
- Gender equality
- Governance
- Green transition
- Integration
- Labour market
- Maritime spatial planning
- Migration
- Regional innovation
- Rural development
- Sustainable development
- Tourism
- Urban planning
The value of high-speed trains in intermediate regions
A cross-border perspective along the Oslo-Stockholm corridor. This policy brief examines how small and medium-sized (SMS) cities can benefit from the introduction of a high-speed train connection. Our results indicate that such transport infrastructure projects might not be the best fit for all SMS cities, even though they can contribute to local urban developments, especially in medium-sized cities. The background information document offers a more detailed view upon the researched areas and summarises the main elements from the workshops and interviews with local stakeholders. These discussions aimed at answering the following question in a number of medium- and small-sized cities in Värmland–Østfold that might be connected to the future HST corridor between Oslo and Stockholm: ‘What could be the effects of the introduction of a faster train service between Oslo and Stockholm on the urban development in your municipality?’ More precisely, the discussions focused on urban and territorial developments in the selected municipalities (Arvika, Askim, Karlstad, Kristinehamn, Lillestrøm and Årjäng).
2019 September
- Policy brief
- Cross-border
- Nordic Region
- Regional innovation
- Urban planning
An Institutionalist View on Experimentalist Governance: Local-level obstacles to policy-learning in European Union Cohesion Policy
The paper has the dual objective of contributing to theory development as well as to the debate about the added value of EU Cohesion Policy. Experimentalist governance theory suggests that a virtuous feedback loop between policy design and implementation can the input- and output-legitimacy of policy making. EU Cohesion Policy formally resembles this experimentalist setting, but persistent debates about its added value suggest that the virtuous loop is blocked. The paper uses new institutionalism theory to systematically identify theoretical explanations for this blockage. It argues that the experimentalist link between organizational structure, pooling of experiences, greater participation, and policy learning is highly precarious. First, the rational-choice perspective suggests that the link rests on the optimistic assumption of a common utility function among the participating actors. Moreover, the structural funds provide strong incentives for grant-seeking. Second, the discursive perspective shows that the identification of shared interests depends on highly demanding speech conditions. Third, the sociological perspective highlights that the evaluation of information is socially conditioned. Therefore, learning may be based on fallacious assumptions and lead to undesired results. The paper substantiates these insights with empirical evidence from one case of institutionalized cross-border cooperation in East Central Europe. This article is published by the European Journal of Spatial Development, which in turn is published by Nordregio and Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.
2017 December
- Research articles / EJSD
- Cross-border
- Europe
- Governance