Publications

In this issue of Nordregio News we take a closer look at what Smart Specialisation entails, and consider it from a Nordic perspective.

This working paper is published as part of the project Regional Strategies for Green Growth and Innovation. This working paper builds on the paper Scoping Green Growth and Innovation in Nordic Regions. One of the main conclusions of this study was that there is a distinct urban-rural dichotomy in the regional preconditions for green growth and innovation. Urban regions are noted for population growth, comparatively low unemployment and high GDP per capita. Because knowledge and innovation institutions, as well as economic production, are largely concentrated in these areas, they are also the recipients of the majority of R&D funding in the Nordic context. Many green production activities are located in rural areas whereas a vast majority of resource consumption takes place in urban settings. The urban-rural dimension as a territorial context frames the conditions of green growth and eco-innovation to some extent, and has been the point of departure in the selection of case studies. The case studies concern the region of Skåne in southern Sweden with a focus on the activities in cleantech, and the region of South Savo in Eastern Finland and its activities in bioenergy.

Nordic countries are working to mitigate and adapt to climate change at all levels. Counteracting and coping with climate change is a guiding principle for a wide range of Nordic initiatives. Local authorities are key actors in delivering the EU2020 and national climate targets. This is especially true in the Nordic countries where the responsibilities of the municipalities are quite broad, e.g. in energy production, land use, waste management and procurement. Also for this reason, Nordic municipalities play a key role in the creation of a sustainable and climate-friendly Nordic region. This study gives a general view over local climate work in Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The study is part of the NordLead project, aiming at recognising the success factors and needs for support in Nordic local climate change work. The project is led by Union of the Baltic Cities – Commission on Environment, and is partly funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Other partners in the project are Nordregio and associations of local authorities in respective countries.

Transnational and cross-border cooperation play a central role in EU Cohesion Policy. The European Territorial Objective, one of three overall objectives of EU Cohesion Policy, and the programmes initiated to reach this objective have had an important impact on cooperation and networking across borders in the Nordic countries. In the new EU programming period 2014-2020, there will be a greater demand for thematic concentration within the cross-border and transnational programmes. The European Commission calls for a closer coordination between the five different EU funds. Each of the CSF Funds shall support a limited number of thematic objectives in order to contribute to the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Nordregio has been commissioned by the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Regional Policy (EK-R), to develop a method which could facilitate the selection of themes and ensure territorial added value in the coming programming areas involving the Nordic countries. The process of concentrating resources, while at the same time coordinating actions with a number of strategies and other funding programmes, makes the added value of the impact of cross-border and transnational cooperation programmes even more vital than ever. Thus through this assignment guidelines will be set up that programme areas can use to concentrate their resources and priorities within the ETC Objective.

Innovations is a policy buzz word and used more or less daily within the political debate. Innovations are regarded as fundamental for achieving economic, social and ecological sustainability. This booklet is an introduction guide to the concept, practices and politics of innovations with focus on its relevance for regional development. Innovations are expected to generate new firms and employment opportunities, increased competitiveness, and contribute growth, in Sweden and elsewhere. They are also perceived as crucial for handling climate change, resource scarcity and demographical challenges such as an ageing population and increased migration in Europe. But what is an innovation? How and where are innovations created? And how can regional innovation polices be formulated and implemented in a globalizing world? These are some of the key questions of this booklet, which also highlights concepts such as eco-innovation, social innovations, and smart specialisation. An open and inclusive definition innovations are currently being emphasised as for example in the recently published Swedish Innovation Strategy. Innovations are created by people and generates new values. An innovation can be anything from new technical products or service processes to a significantly improved business models or new forms of organisational and institutional arrangements. This conceptualisation of innovations creates opportunities and challenges policy making. Amongst other things, it implies that regions need position themselves in relation to other regions nationally and internationally, and simultaneously develop context specific innovation strategies and priorities. The booklet offers an introduction to current discourse on innovation by reviewing a selection of essential policy documents from leading international and national organisations such as OECD, EU and Swedish national authorities. It does not offer a new theory on innovation or suggestions on how to innovation policies should be formulated, but it provides an conceptual overview, practical thematic and regional examples on innovations and innovation policies.

In this issue of Nordregio News we challenge existing urban geographies.

In many countries, renewable energy is highly prioritized, not only as a means of addressing environmental and energy security issues, but also as a potentially significant source of new employment, especially in rural areas throughout the OECD. One of the most important questions for policymakers is whether renewable energy can assist the development of rural economies. In response, this brief presents the results of a two-year project led by the OECD. The findings indicate that policy focused on the potential for renewable energy in the process of rural development should be cross-sector and place based. This implies identifying local conditions and opportunities, and integrating and linking the potential of renewable energy with local rural economies, as well as adopting inclusive modes of governance to ensure social acceptance. The results also indicate that while renewable energy has the ability to create new jobs, we should not exaggerate its potential. Overall, renewable energy is potentially useful for all rural and low-population-density regions, but mainly in shifting a community facing structural economic downturn to a new lower economic equilibrium.

This working paper presents a part of the work in ‘Nordic regions and the demographic challenge’ initiative by the Nordic working group for the exchange of experience and knowledge developments (urban policies). One issue that has gained political recognition in recent years is the consequences for, and challenges faced by, regions marked by significant demographic change. In order to highlight the various territorial development patterns currently prevalent in the Nordic Countries, and the differences that occur across similar types of regions, this paper outlines the various possibilities for analytic comparisons at two levels. Firstly, local labour markets can be used to highlight the key development trends in functional areas of various sizes. Secondly the ‘Nordic urban typology’ can be used as a spatial analytical tool to map regional development trends while distinguishing between different urban types of Nordic labour markets in a comparable manner. In addition to introducing new material this report also includes follow-up analyses to a 2006 study, ‘The role of urban areas in regional development – a European and Nordic perspective” with the intent of tracking the changes to the functional local labour markets that have occurred in the interim.

Policy recommendations from the project “Coastal societies and demography” Many rural areas are exposed to situations where schools are being closed due to the declining number of children, local shops are disappearing in the smaller towns, while local governments are struggling with pressure on the local public budgets. Parallel to this new residential areas are shooting up in the urban areas. This is just a small glimpse of the visible consequences of the on-going global urbanisation trend. In the Nordic coastal societies the urbanisation is also visible and the consequences are often even more pronounced.

This issue of Nordregio News discusses the concept of quality of life from an urban-rural perspective.

This is the final publication of the project Regional Strategies for Green Growth and Innovation commissioned by the Nordic Working Group for Third Generation Regional Policy. This report synthesises the work carried out within the framework of the project which comprise the working papers Scoping Green Growth and Innovation in Nordic regions, and Green Growth and Innovation in Nordic Regions: Case Studies. This report comprises an identification of key concepts; a quantitative mapping exercise of green growth in Nordic regions; two case studies of respectively an urban and rural region which have both targeted public development initiatives within the area of green growth; and finally policy implications for green growth in post-2013 regional development strategies and suggestions for further research.

A background report for the project on coastal societies and demography. The initial focus of this working paper is on the challenges for the West Nordic area in meeting the on-going demographic changes. These challenges are not special for the West Nordic area. During much of the analysis the focus will thus be just as much on Norden as a whole, and with references to Europe, the Arctic and globally. This working paper is part of Nordregio’s contribution to the project Coastal Societies and Demographic Challenges in the North Atlantic.

The final version of the demographic handbook has now been published in Swedish. The handbook aims at providing a new tool for regional and local policy-makers to find inspiration when preparing strategies and projects to respond to the demographic changes in the Nordic countries. The demographic handbook is indexing more than 150 Nordic projects that are responding to the demographic changes in the Nordic countries. The handbook is divided into four parts. Each part represents one index. In Part 1, the index key is geography. Four maps provide an opportunity to create a demographic profile on municipal and regional level in all the Nordic countries. The four maps presented in Part 1 in the handbook are also developed as interactive maps. In Part 2 of the handbook, the index key is the themes in the projects. Ten themes are identified, such as health, education, and regional and local development. In Part 3, the index key is the methods in the projects. Seven methods are identified, such as cooperation, prognosis, and attractiveness. In the handbook and the interactive web maps the examples are only described shortly – a more extensive description and contact information can be found in Appendix 1. Appendix 2 contains technical notes on maps and graphs in part 1 of the handbook. This is the final edition of the demographic handbook, published in June 2012. The handbook has been discussed at four Nordic workshops gathering regional and local policymakers and revised according to comments at these workshops. The handbook is published in Swedish and Finnish.

This working paper is published as part of the project “Regional Strategies for Green Growth and Innovation”. This working paper illustrates the relatively new and explorative nature of the green growth concept. First, it includes a literature review on green growth and related concepts, with particular focus on conceptualizing green growth and innovation from a ‘territorial’ or ‘spatial’ perspective; that is, focusing on the implications of the geographic, demographic and economic characteristics of specific regions within Nordic countries for their green growth performance and potential, e.g. urban versus rural experiences. This section includes an overview of national policies and strategies for green growth in each of the Nordic countries. Second, it presents a quantitative study using available data, intended to identify different regions’ potential for and barriers against green growth and to produce visual representations in the form of maps. The paper’s second part illustrates in particular that identifying and developing a quantitative approach to mapping green growth performance and potential at the regional level faces many challenges, and it remains a work in progress.

What positions and roles do our Nordic cities have in this world of flows, and how does the global network economy impact on Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm, and on Nordic urban policymaking more generally? World cities such as New York, London, Paris and Singapore are seen as central nodes in the global networks of capital, commodities, knowledge, people and cultural symbols. In this sense, they function as important hubs for the interaction of skilled labour and their ‘tacit knowledge’, as financial control centres and as major points of origin for the generation of different kinds of innovations (i.e. social, cultural, and technical). This Nordregio policy brief highlights how globalisation creates new challenges and opportunities for policymakers in the Nordic capital regions. “Can I pay someone to write my research paper“? Yes, you can! Professional writing service is ready to write all your research papers quickly and cheaply.

Demographic handbook for the Nordic countries – and how the B7 islands could make use of it. The new demographic handbook for the Nordic countries, produced by Nordregio, emphasises the emergence of three key demographic trends across the Nordic countries. Migration is the main driver of demographic development with the population being increasingly concentrated to larger cities and regional centres; the population is also ageing, although this varies both in its extent and in the actual rate of increase, while in addition, the gender balance continues to vary significantly across the territory. Individually and collectively these trends will have a crucial impact on practically all policy fields. The purpose of this policy brief is to provide regional and local policymakers with useful information for decision-making and planning to handle the demographic challenges.

The final version of the demographic handbook has now been published in Finnish. The handbook aims at providing a new tool for regional and local policy-makers to find inspiration when preparing strategies and projects to respond to the demographic changes in the Nordic countries. The demographic handbook is indexing more than 150 Nordic projects that are responding to the demographic changes in the Nordic countries. The handbook is divided into four parts. Each part represents one index. In Part 1, the index key is geography. Four maps provide an opportunity to create a demographic profile on municipal and regional level in all the Nordic countries. The four maps presented in Part 1 in the handbook are also developed as interactive maps. In Part 2 of the handbook, the index key is the themes in the projects. Ten themes are identified, such as health, education, and regional and local development. In Part 3, the index key is the methods in the projects. Seven methods are identified, such as cooperation, prognosis, and attractiveness. In the handbook and the interactive web maps the examples are only described shortly – a more extensive description and contact information can be found in Appendix 1. Appendix 2 contains technical notes on maps and graphs in part 1 of the handbook. This is the final edition of the demographic handbook, published in June 2012. The handbook has been discussed at four Nordic workshops gathering regional and local policymakers and revised according to comments at these workshops. The handbook is published in Swedish and Finnish.

This report is intended as an input to the preparations for the new Cohesion Policy and CAP Rural Development programming period, which is scheduled to begin in January 2014. First we compare and reflect upon experiences of RDPs in Nordic EU member states and in Scotland. The final chapters focus upon the concept of coherence, first in relation to current programmes, and then considering the implications of the draft regulations of the CAP. This report has been written as preparation for a workshop, to be held at Nordregio in Stockholm on May 7th 2012. The workshop is intended as an opportunity to discuss issues raised by the ongoing preparations for the new EU policy programming period, beginning in 2014. More specifically the focus will be upon the process of compiling Partnership Contracts, within the context of the Common Strategic Framework. The draft legislation, which is currently the subject of scrutiny by the European Council and Parliament, requires a greater degree of coordination (known as ‘coherence’) between Regional and Rural Development policies, and this implies a higher level of interaction and mutual understanding between the two policy communities.

A handbook for inspiration and actions in the Nordic municipalities and regions. The demographic handbook aims at providing a new developed tool for administrators and decision-makers for finding inspiration for their own projects that are responding to the demographic changes in the Nordic countries. The demographic handbook is indexing 141 Nordic projects that are responding to the demographic changes in the Nordic countries. The handbook is divided into four parts. Each part represents one index. In Part 1, the index key is geography. Four maps provide an opportunity to create a demographic profile on municipal level in all the Nordic countries. The maps presented in Part 1 in the handbook are also developed as interactive maps on the Internet. In Part 2, the index key is the themes in the projects. Ten themes are identified, such as health, education, and regional and local development. In Part 3, the index key is the methods in the projects. Seven methods are identified, such as cooperation, prognosis, and attractiveness. In Part 4, the index key is nationality. Part 4 is a separate appendix to the handbook. This is the second edition of the demographic handbook, published March 21st 2012. A third and final edition of the 2012 issue of the demographic handbook is expected to be published in mid June 2012 after input from workshops held during the spring.

This Nordregio Policy Brief is designed to provide policymakers working in growing cities and regions with policy options to accommodate population growth without vast urban sprawl. Even in Stockholm, Europe’s green capital in 2010, there are possibilities for policy improvements in shaping the urban form while accommodating population growth.