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***apologies for cross-posting*** On behalf of the RSA research network on Cohesion Policy, I would like to remind you to the CfP for the next RSA conference in Graz (3-6 April 2016). Please find the Call for Papers below. DEADLINE for submission: 7 December (next Monday) Nicola F. Dotti ****** SESSION TITLE COHESION POLICY FOR EUROPEAN REGIONS AND CITIES: BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CHALLENGES SESSION ORGANISER RSA RESEARCH NETWORK ON THE COHESION POLICY CONTACT PERSON NICOLA FRANCESCO DOTTI (COSMOPOLIS, Centre for Urban Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel - VUB) [log in to unmask] DESCRIPTION
Since 2014 a new programming period of the EU’s Cohesion Policy (CP) has started adding a major emphasis on the importance of investments to recover from the crisis that has significantly increased regional disparities. While during past decades the CP has attracted major attention animating lively debates on regional disparities, territorial cohesion, tools of regional and urban policy, multi-level governance, policy impacts and evaluation, territorial reforms and regionalisation, as well as the wider issue of European integration, new challenges are emerging. First, the urgency to provide returns from CP investments in the context of the economic crisis requires a shift in the long-term perspective of regional development. Second, the 2014-2020 programming period has started amidst a major political crisis for the EU, triggered by the Eurozone woes and deepened by a series of political crises (conflicts at Europe’s gates, the risk of ‘brexit’ or ‘grexit’, refugee crisis and the raise of populist parties across the EU member states to name a few), which risks undermining the future of the policy itself. In fact, CP remains heavily criticised and questioned, while the debate for the post-2020 reform has already started. Third, the well-known “DG-Regio” of the EU Commission has changed the official denomination in “Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy” symbolically marking the new emphasis on the urban dimension of CP. Fourth, the Europe2020 strategy and the so-called ‘Juncker’s investment plan’ boost for integration of the CP with other policies to benefit from synergies in addressing the economic crisis, however, little or nothing is said on the relationship between the CP and other major policy options currently discussed such as the exit of some member states from the EU, the TTIP and the coordination between investments and monetary policies.
Against this background, we invite paper proposals addressing the following issues in the framework of the EU’s Cohesion Policy:
- Addressing grand societal challenges of the Europe2020 strategy: CP for climate change, ageing, and poverty.
- The political role of the CP in the European integration and for the future of the EU.
- The (new?) European Urban Agenda.
- The CP policy in the context of the EU budget and the EU economic governance.
- New financial instruments, integrated territorial investments (ITI), and their governance and financing system: first experiences.
- Cross-border cooperation in a period of centrifugal forces: Interreg and policy mobility.
- ‘Smart specialisation strategies’, ‘smart cities’, and ‘smart governance’: towards a ‘smart’ CP?
- Methods for policy evaluation: the role of academics, experts and consultants in understanding and improving CP.
- Capitalisation of the CP: policy learning from three decades of CP, taking stock of progress and not reinventing the wheel.
Anyone interested in participating in the session should register for the conference before
7th December 2015 (online registration)* and chose it when submitting the abstract. Please note that while we will assess all the proposals submitted to this special session, we will select only a limited number of proposals, bearing in mind their fit with the topics outlined above, complementarities between them and the overall coherence of the session.
If the link does not work, please use the following one
RSA Research Network on Cohesion Policy