Programme

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More than economics: A broader view of regional development

Regional development is one of the EU’s key strategies for improving equality and living standards across Europe. But what exactly does regional development mean, and how can we approach it?

Historically, regional development has long been approached as economic development. In the PREMIUM_EU project, we see regional development as much more than economic growth alone. It is a broad, interconnected concept that includes social conditions, the quality of living environments, political contexts, and demographics alongside those ever-important economic factors.

In the presentation, we illustrate why this wider perspective is especially valuable for rural regions. It highlights new ways of understanding their development and opens up possibilities for different policy strategies that better match their specific needs and opportunities.

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Is infrastructure enough? The case of decline in the Faroe Islands

Over the last six decades, the Faroe Islands, an 18-island archipelago in the North Atlantic, undertook a massive road construction project. The project included building many tunnels, the first of which opened in 1963, and sub-sea tunnels; the most recent one was inaugurated in December 2024. Transport infrastructure lies at the foundation of the country’s development, and ferry lines have been progressively replaced by fixed links regardless of socio-economic conditions, such as the economic and demographic collapse after the crash of the fisheries in the early 1990.

This talk investigates the archipelago’s spatial and regional development over the last six decades to determine whether road expansion has contributed to the demographic sustainability of communities. This is done by analysing the development of transport infrastructure and its impact on population change at the regional, island, and village levels. Results show that fixed links have been critical in connecting distant villages and islands together across the archipelago. Yet, the few exceptions of the so-called ‘outer islands’ demonstrate that tunnels alone have been insufficient to achieve a demographically balanced country. While the Faroe Islands have a unique physical geography, there are lessons for other remote rural regions facing accessibility challenges.

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Retention and return migration are crucial for resilience. This panel explores why people stay, why they leave, and what convinces them to return, highlighting practical policies that help regions maintain a stable, thriving population.

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Who migrates to Europe? Our diverse demographic future

Drawing on PREMIUM_EU’s harmonised data on international country-to-country migration and internal region-to-region mobility Dilek Yildiz and Leo van Wissen directly compare these two population flows. Her presentation examines how internal migration and international migration differ in scale, selectivity, distance, life-course timing and socio-demographic composition.

Do people who move from rural to urban regions within their own country resemble those who migrate abroad? Are motivations primarily economic in both cases, or does international migration respond more strongly to structural inequalities between countries?

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Integration under pressure: Ukrainian displacement in a regional perspective

This presentation explores how rural and intermediate regions respond to rapid population growth, labour-market integration challenges, and institutional pressures. What can Ukrainian displacement teach us about diaspora networks, onward mobility, return intentions and long-term settlement? And how can regions turn a demographic shock into an opportunity for resilience?

Konrad’s presentation situates forced migration within the broader PREMIUM_EU agenda: understanding how different forms of mobility affect vulnerable regions and what integration efforts can tell us about the capacity of rural Europe to adapt.

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This panel looks closer at the balancing act behind attraction strategies. The classics are there: jobs, housing, infrastructure. But how do you cultivate a sense of belonging and a high quality of life in smaller towns and remote places? And what can rural regions learn from each other?

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