Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are an important source of investment at EU level and in many member states. More regionalised information is needed to understand recent trends and the territorial factors that determine location of FDIs in order to develop specific territorial policy measures for cities and regions in Europe.

The overall objective of the project is to provide tailor-made recommendations to support regions and cities in their positioning and defining of policies towards receiving FDI, as well as integrating the attraction of foreign firms into regional development strategies. In this perspective this project introduces an approach for centralised/decentralised systems for relevant decision making.

The project is led by Copenhagen Economics and will be implemented until December 2017. Nordregio will provide inputs to three main tasks:

• Analysis of trends in EU inwards FDI flows: map and analyse the distribution and the development in FDI flows across countries, regions and cities (Task 2).
• Selection and analysis of case studies and examples of good practice in attracting FDI inflows and integrating the attraction of foreign firms into regional development strategies (Task 4).
• Recommendations and targeted regional development strategies: using findings to provide recommendations and explain how FDI attraction can be integrated into regional development strategies (Task 5).