Suchergebnisse

ESPON for Nordic Regions: Breaking down selected results from the ESPON programme for the use in a Nordic regional context. Stockholm 2007. Over the past decade EU regional policies have become ever more central to the formulation of regional policies in the Nordic countries. This is so even for regional development policy in Norway and Iceland, as both countries are party to the EEA agreement, which addresses a variety of issues tied to the processes of Europeanization and globalization that shape the development context of their regions. Strong influences on regional policy can also be derived from the re-launched Lisbon Agenda, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF). As such, the demand for comparable territorial data placing Nordic regional structures and development trends in a wider European context has increased significantly among Nordic regional policy makers. With the emergence of the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON), established within the context of the EU Structural Funds under the Community Initiative INTERREG III, the body of knowledge concerning European territorial structures, development trends and perspectives, as well as policy impacts has thus increased substantially. After the completion of phase one of ESPON (2002-2006), the programme is now embarking upon its second period of development (2007-2013). This report has been commissioned and financed by the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Regional Policy (EK-R) in order to further capitalise on the results of ESPON 2006 for Nordic regions and to examine Nordic needs in the upcoming ESPON 2013 programme. This includes the extraction of ESPON content relevant within a Nordic regional development context and a territorial breakdown of selected quantitative results to better fit the Nordic regional decision making level.

In current discourse the knowledge economy is viewed as the primary saviour of European competitiveness. By increasingly focusing on economic activities that utilise knowledge and innovation as the primary value-adding feature rather than cheap labour or available raw materials the EU should be able to increase its constantly weakening competitive position vis-à-vis North America and the fast growing economies in South and Southeast Asia. In the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, the European Union set a strategic goal for the next decade "of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". There is thus an implicit expectation that an increasingly knowledge-based economy would automatically generate larger economic growth and prosperity. Before trying to illuminate further on that issue there is however a need to establish exactly how the knowledge economy could be operationalised to quantifiable measures. A generally utilised option here is the division of the knowledge economy into input and output variables. The former could be characterised as the actual endowments of the knowledge production system and include such issues as the educational level and knowledge of the population, the social capital of the population, the amount of money invested into education or the number of students, investments into research and development (R&D), etc. Output variables could be regarded as measurements of the economic or other output of the regional research environment and include, in addition to direct economic measurements such as GDP, issues such as the number of issued patents or patent applications or employment within certain knowledge-intensive branches. Thus the main question here centres on the patterns of knowledge economy inputs and outputs in Europe and how are these distributed among the regions of the continent.

In this paper will seek to provoke a discussion on the emergence and the potential characteristics of a future common labour market in the Baltic Sea Region. Based on a study of labour force migration from Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to Sweden and Finland during the past decade, the focus is placed on analysing the integration processes following immigration. The study relies on individual gross-stream data that allows for detailed analysis and for the comparison of labour market careers. As such, the contribution of recent westbound immigrants with differing background characteristics (individual socio-economic assets e.g. level of education, cultural background e.g. country of origin) to economic integration/segregation can be pointed out. In addition, the importance of labour migration in the Baltic Sea Region for different sectors of the old and the emerging new economy will also be discussed. Supplemented by official statistics, the Swedish pattern is then compared to similar migration characteristics in the context of Finland. ; Introduction Nordic Experiences of the Common Labour Market 1954–2000 Immigration Policy in Sweden and Finland – Organisations and Regulations Sweden Finland Migration from Eastern BSR Countries to the Nordic Countries in the 1990s Immigration from Eastern BSR Countries to Sweden The Background Characteristics of Eastern BSR Immigrants 1991–96 Labour Market Integration by East-to-West Migration Patterns of Labour Market Careers by Eastern BSR Immigrants, 1991–96 Migration Flows between Finland and the Baltic Sea Region Labour Market Integration of BSR immigrants The Impact of the Enlargement of the European Union Active Immigration Policy The Potential for East-to-West Migration in the BSR after EU Enlargement post-2004 References.

Internal differences within the Nordic countries flit around the extremes of the pendulum. On the one hand, the capital and other metropolitan areas of the Nordic countries are amongst the fastest growing on the whole continent. On the other hand peripheral areas are, when placed in their national contexts, lagging behind and in dire need of active support. This is the traditional picture of the Nordic dichotomy. In the first years after the turn of the millennium small indications suggest that the overly excessive concentration to a few metropolitan areas has partially and at least currently reached the end of its path. Regardless whether these new patterns are a mere breather in the time line of peripheral decline or if they will prove to be more permanent trends, it is currently nonetheless one of the most important tasks for policy makers to try to strike a balance between the development trends in different parts of the Nordic countries. The task is further challenged by the shifting focus of the new EU Structural Funds 2007-2013 programming period away from the Nordic countries. The 2007 handbook in the series 'Regional Development in the Nordic Countries' provides a comprehensive picture of the current state of play of regional development challenges and the policies and tools utilised to tackle the problems now and in the years to come. This also includes an overview on the processes of administrative structural reforms of government in the Nordic countries. In addition Nordic relevant aspects of EU regional policy support and possibilities of territorial co-operation for the period 2007-2013 are covered. The report comes with 29 detailed maps, an A3 poster pin-up and numerous graphical illustrations, all of which featuring EU27 standards and the new Danish territorial divisions. In the statistical annex, comparable demographic and economic key indicators are given for all 1 366 Nordic municipalities and their corresponding regions, including each of the autonomous territories. All graphical material is ready-to-hand available for download at the Maps & Figures section of this website and can be used free of charge.

This report provides an analysis of the Nordic innovation policies of relevance for regional innovation systems. The central question addressed is how national policy makers can best apply the broad Lisbon strategy goals to the specific creation of regional innovation policies adapted to the Nordic context. Meeting the ideals and goals of the Lisbon Agenda may imply significant changes in the Nordic countries. Specifically, if innovation is to be stimulated in the public sector this demands an increased role for the market in the production of goods and services produced by the public sector. The data available tends to highlight the fact that the metropolitan areas dominate in terms of innovation performance and potential across the Nordic countries. Regional differences must thus be considered in the context of the development of innovation policy instruments, while more sophisticated enabling instruments will undoubtedly also be needed. In the EU context the regions are viewed as being the actors best able to appreciate local and regional needs and thus best placed to develop innovation policies. Historically, the state has controlled innovation policy in the Nordic countries. The regional level may therefore need to be granted formal competence for the development of regional innovation policies. The EU commission has asked for the application of a broad view of innovation. Innovation policy in the Nordic countries has traditionally however been concerned, predominantly, with research and development policies, though all of the Nordic countries are currently in the course of adopting a broader approach to innovation. By its very nature this broader approach ensures that a wider and ever expanding range of policy fields address the notion of innovation. Better coordination between the various policy fields addressing innovation may thus be needed in order to avoid competing or overlapping measures at the national and regional levels.