1. Wrap-up of Workshop 2 - Innovation and Competitiveness
Nils Schneekloth
ESPON Seminar
Espoo, Finland,

2. Policy context Starting point: Lisbon and Gothenborg Strategy
Which are the main factors to achieve the given targets
Lisbon performance in European area has not been satisfactory yet
Territorial key factors are not always visible in the documents
How do we develop a strategy for whole Europe and tailor it to the needs of the European regions
How to interface the derived results with policy makers?
How do we manage long term political and spatial processes?

3. Factors of innovation and competitiveness and their political challenges
The development of the information society and ICT policies have the potential to improve accessibility of peripheral regions significantly
Potential to give peripheral regions business opportunities and access to services
Disadvantaged regions of the information society tend to fall further behind rather than catching up
Several policies have been suggested to improve accessibility of ICT services and their use don’t succeed for several reasons
Success factors are availability and provision of services and education but it is to a large extent influenced by the attitudes of stakeholders in a region
If one switches to a policy of furthering regions with specific ICT potential, can one still speak of cohesion policies or is it a switch to efficiency oriented policies
Spatial arrangements shouldn’t hinder efficient investments
How to redistribute possible gains if one still wants to pursue a policy of territorial cohesion?

4. Factors of innovation and competitiveness and their political challenges
When dealing with competitiveness and growth one should not neglect sustainability aspect
When pursuing the cohesion goal it is suggested to give every region and citizen the same opportunities than aiming at equalization in the strict sense
Sustainability in this sense needs multiple qualitative indicators for the evaluation
It is recommended to exploit local identities and attitudes and further their development and enable them to reach their full potentials
Time dimension, transformation processes take usually a long time

5. Factors of innovation and competitiveness and their political challenges
Globalisation plays a big role in the development of regional industries
Identification of a economic centre in the northern hemisphere that is surrounded by regions that are developing faster
Only few neighbouring countries that can be regarded as integrated partners
Need for a focused geopolitical strategy of the EU and a vision of a future Europe in the world
So far we see a lack of vision for the relationships with the new faster growing regions in the world
Development of policy options that can be communicated to policy makers

6. Factors of innovation and competitiveness and their political challenges
3 main groups of factors for economic success have been identified
Traditional economic factors
Modern, milieu and quality of life related factors
Governance
National policies play in general bigger roles for regional economic growth than region specific circumstances
Sector structure of a region can show the history and future challenges in the future transformation of the region
How to deal with spatially differentiated impacts of national economic policies?

7. Factors of innovation and competitiveness and their political challenges
How to favour investments without creating social and fiscal dumping
Enhancement of productivity with an appropriate distribution of the gains in wages, taxes and profits
Are redistribution schemes suitable when economic trends favour divergence?
Need for an identification of regional strengths, weakness and dynamics, either by case studies or regional economic models

8. Recommendations for further research in ESPON II
Improve data availability
in ICT on regional scale
Improve time series to study long term developments
Improve spatial scope to widen the geographic area of the analysis
Network of national experts that can comment on the qualitative spatial indicators
Co-operation with neighbouring countries
Development of contacts with DG Trade and DG Relex
How to integrate the goals of the Lisbon and Gothenborg process?
Development and application of a policy of eco-efficiency
Opening projects to integrate various aspects