Europe is increasingly shaped by functional relationships – flows of people, resources, services and environmental processes – that cut across traditional administrative borders. This creates territorial patterns linked to issues such as water management, biodiversity, industrial and energy transitions, sustainable mobility, health, migration and the industrialisation of marine space. These complex interdependencies are not captured by conventional units, making it difficult for policymakers to design effective place‑based strategies.
The ESPON NoStaGeo project addresses this challenge by defining and analysing emerging non‑standard geographies, examining their development trends and exploring the governance arrangements needed to manage them across Europe.
The NoStaGeo project will:
- compile available spatial data to map emerging geoagraphies and develop indicators to track development trends.
- produce strategic mappings of governance structures across these territories.
- generate detailed case studies, policy guidelines, recommendations, and good‑practice examples to support more coherent and effective governance.
- provide capacity‑building guidance and interactive data, maps and visual tools accessible through the ESPON Portal, helping policymakers and practitioners better understand and manage emerging functional territories.
Nordregio’s main expertise in this project is statistical and spatial data analysis. As part of this task, Nordregio aims to collect the relevant data and develops clear and policy‑relevant cartographic visualisations that map and describe selected emerging geographies for the entire ESPON area.
