Territorial Impact Assessment

This chapter presents TARGET_TIA as a relevant and flexible Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) methodology. TARGET_TIA was created in a context where existing ESPON TIA tools were mainly designed for assessing ex ante territorial impacts of EU directives. Hence, in view of the need to properly assess the main ex post territorial impacts of EU Cohesion Policy in several countries in a relevant and sound way, the author decided to design, test and apply his own TIA methodology, named TARGET_TIA. When compared with other existing TIA methodologies, TARGET_TIA can be used both at ex ante and ex post policy evaluation phases. In addition, it brings to the table the possibility to use counterfactual evaluation elements to allow the production of credible and sound TIA evaluation scores. Following on from its implementation in assessing the main territorial impacts of EU policies and programmes, mostly at the ex post evaluation phase, it is possible to conclude that it is a credible, flexible, easy-to-operate, cost-effective and robust TIA methodology, which can be applied to projects, programmes and policies, at all territorial levels.

The request for building an operational model for the ex ante assessment of the territorial impact of EU policies, projects and regulations was addressed directly to the author by the ESPON managing authority. A rationale and definition of what could be intended as TIA was proposed, a prototype model and the connected software was built and applied to the TEN (Trans-European Network) program in 2004–2006. The convincing results achieved were followed by subsequent new and deeper studies, where the model was improved, simplified and implemented on EU transport and agricultural policies and to some EU directives in the environmental fields. TEQUILA is a multi-criteria model working on a quantitative base on Nuts3 regions in the EU; however, it integrates in a statistically consistent way qualitative judgements by experts, when necessary. The criteria refer to the main dimensions of territorial cohesion – territorial efficiency, territorial quality and territorial identity – and their sub-dimensions/criteria, measurable by multiple indicators. Particularly the goal of territorial identity captured the interest and favour of policy makers. Impact maps on concrete applications, illustrated here, were used in official reports of the European Commission.

The STeMA-TIA model has been devised to support an integrated strategic vision of general, territorialised and sectoral policies at all decision-making levels. This assessment tool was created within the context of spatial planning and as part of the territorial dimension of the European Strategies. STeMA-TIA is based on an original qualitative-quantitative methodological approach comprising 10 simplifying hypotheses and 9 logical steps. It develops along interactive coaxial matrices (indicators-policies-effects), which return ex ante and ex post results and maps. It was fruitfully applied to the Territorial Dimension within the Lisbon/Gothenburg Strategy, the Territorial Cohesion Policy, and National and Regional Operative Plans 2020, as well as to Italian structural reforms at the metropolitan and regional level. The strength of this tool lies in its flexibility and ability to combine different indicators related to economic, social, environmental, cultural, organisational and financial dimensions, which assess Territorial Impact Assessment in relation to original Systemic Territorial Functional Typologies. One existing weakness of STeMA-TIA is that, during a pairwise comparison process, identifying indicators such as ‘dominant’ and ‘secondary’ may not always be straightforward. Further developments and applications may help overcome this limitation. Future applications of STeMA-TIA include using it to measure Territorial Cohesion within green economy policies at the national-regional level or to evaluate the post-2020 Europe strategy, cultural heritage and tourist strategies via Innovative Technologies and within Smart Specialisation Strategy.

This chapter presents the results of the European ESPON EATIA research project in which a Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) methodology was developed for administrations in EU member states in order to inform their national positions in European draft directives’ negotiation processes. Rather than applying another EU-wide top-down quantitative modelling approach based on indicators, the EATIA project explored the possibility to use a qualitative bottom-up approach that is simple to perform and comprehend for regional and/or local stakeholders, and national administrations of the 27 EU member states. The project was conducted between 2010 and 2012 in a transnational manner, connecting four universities and ministries, responsible for planning from the UK, Portugal, Slovenia and the Netherlands. The main output of the project is a TIA framework (Fischer TB, Sykes O, Gore T, Marot N, Golobič M, Pinho P, … Perdicoulis A. Territorial impact assessment of European Draft Directives—the emergence of a new policy assessment instrument. Eur Plan Stud 23(3): 433–451, 2015), based on a process consisting of screening, scoping, assessment and evaluation, with possible techniques allocated to each of these stages, and proposed governance arrangements. Testing of the TIA framework on various EU directives (e.g. Natura 2000, SEVESO) has shown that the approach meets the expectations of experts, but its success to a large extent rests on the commitment of the governing stakeholders to engage with and contribute to the process.

Considering the myriad cross-border regions that the EU counts, it is impossible for the European Commission to map detailed territorial cross-border effects in all of the EU’s border regions for the impact assessments it conducts. National governments also face obstacles when seeking to cohesively integrate cross-border impact assessments in the existing frameworks that they use to assess the impact of new legislative, policy and enforcement measures. Even border regions or cross-border entities themselves face challenges in implementing impact assessments in their own territories. Despite the need for structural analyses of the border effects of newly adopted legislation and legislation under review, in terms of policy and enforcement, there are issues regarding the availability of academic resources, relevant tools and know-how. For the last couple of years, researchers from Maastricht University have been assessing as a bottom up exercise the potential effects of legislative proposals on the specific Dutch/German and Dutch/Belgium cross-border territories. This article presents the methodology used and the experiences gained from 2016 to 2019 by highlighting a number of interesting cases. It also offers future ideas for conducting similar “bottom-up” regulatory territorial impact assessments in cross-border regions.

The solution for cross-territorial impact assessment (CBC TIA) developed by the Central European Service for Cross-Border Initiatives (CESCI) can be classified as a bottom-up model – unlike the TIA tool of the European Union (cf: EC, Assessing territorial impacts: operational guidance on how to assess regional and local impacts within the Commission Impact Assessment System, European Commission, Brussels, SWD(2013) 3 final, 2013) and those designed in the framework of the ESPON programme (like ESPON EATIA, INTERCO. Indicators of territorial cohesion. (Draft) Final Report. Part B Report, 2013) and similarly to the TARGET TIA by Medeiros (Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA). Concept, Methods and Techniques, Centro de Estudos Geográficos da Universidade de Lisboa (CEG) – Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território (IGOT). Lisbon University, Lisbon, Reg Stud Reg Sci 2(1):97–115) and the TIA of the ITEM (since 2016, annually), which are gained from daily experiences of cross-border cooperation. The CESCI CBC TIA focuses on processes facilitating the gradual elimination of the border effects and the shared exploitation of the territorial potential, territorial capital of the divided border area. These processes can be detected by a multidimensional toolkit including the mapping of the perceptions of Otherness and the territorial behaviour of the border people, and the analysis of the forms and embeddedness of cross-border governance. Consequently, this model does not contain a universal formula, but rather, it establishes a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators describing how, and to what extent, the assessed activities, projects and investments contribute to an eased permeability of the administrative borders.

Cross-border cooperation (CBC) has great socioeconomic potential. If one-fifth of legal obstacles to cross-border interaction would be solved, 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in EU cross-border regions – 1 million jobs – could be gained. CBC is hampered by the fact that territories are regulated by different legal frameworks. Legal obstacles derive both from EU and national legislation. National legislative processes seldom take properly into account impacts across borders, including when transposing European legislation. Cross-border investments can have reduced effectiveness because of legal obstacles. To ensure not-border-blind legislation and increasing investment effectiveness, the European Commission (EC) has included Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) in its Better Regulation Package. Furthermore, it is working to ensure TIA has a CB dimension. This chapter will describe the EC’s experience with CB TIA: (i) analysing tools/methodologies guaranteeing TIA is conducted ex ante, ensuring EU legislative proposals have no asymmetric impact on CB regions and how such tools/methodologies can be explored in national/regional legislative processes and (ii) describing TIA experiences on CBC programmes’ ex post impacts. Europe is a continent characterised by many borders relatively to geographical size. Their impact on people’s lives – despite the single market – is a major concern. That is why the EU needs to be at the forefront in terms of cross-border TIA.

Policy-making shapes – explicitly or implicitly – future territorial development. Therefore, sound policy making needs strong territorial and future dimensions. While territorial impact assessments focus on the territorial impact of policies, territorial foresight addresses possible long-term developments and their potential future impact on territories in order to support anticipatory or future-wise decision-making. This chapter argues to adopt territorial foresight approaches instead of territorial impact assessments when long-term developments are concerned. Territorial foresight combines elements of territorial impact assessments and foresight approaches. As such the approach supports addressing the territorial impact of future trends, visions and policy objectives when designing forward-looking policies. It offers different steps that support policy makers in thinking territorially, allow them to anticipate on the future and increase ownership on possible actions shaping the future. In short, territorial foresight contributes to making policies future-wise, i.e. fit for the future.

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has implemented the LUISA Territorial Modelling Platform for ex ante evaluation of European policies, measures and initiatives that might have a direct or indirect territorial impact. LUISA is based on the concept of ‘land function’ for cross-sector integration and for the representation of complex system dynamics. Beyond a traditional land use model, LUISA adopts a new approach towards activity-based modelling based upon the endogenous dynamic allocation of population, services and activities. The LUISA Platform consists of set of connected modules. A regional module is employed to regionalise (downscale) exogenous socio-economic projections and produce scenarios of regional development according to defined options of growth. An advanced module for the local distribution and allocation of Land Functions is based upon the dynamic interaction between population distribution, accessibility potential and the utility-based allocation of services. Feedbacks and spillover effects are included within and between the local and regional modules. LUISA outputs are represented in terms of ‘territorial indicators’ covering a wide range of themes, from economy to demography, to accessibility and transport to resource efficiency. The territorial indicators are routinely updated and distributed by online tool Urban Data Platform Plus of the Knowledge Centre for Territorial Policies.

European cohesion policy aims to mitigate regional disparities and foster regions that are economically lagging behind. One way to encourage economic activities in such under-developed regions is through supporting entrepreneurship. The study explores the territorial effects of public subsidies aimed at promoting the competitiveness of Czech enterprises. The analysis evaluates the impact of the largest Czech entrepreneurship policy – Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovation (OPEI) and its regional firm-level effects. Funded by the European Regional and Development Fund, part of EU cohesion policy, it ran from 2007 to 2013. The research exploits a microeconomic dataset of 3614 supported and 6622 non-supported companies, and empirically assesses whether the outcomes of the policy differed territorially across the Czech NUTS 3 regions 2 years after the end of the intervention. The method used is the counterfactual impact evaluation. For that purpose, we operationalise firm-level competitiveness by financial performance indicators. The findings show that the effects of EU cohesion policy differed across the Czech NUTS 3 regions. The confirmed cross-regional effects of public interventions have implications for the future adjustments of cohesion policy. Accordingly, we argue that adapting calls to the specificities of the different locations (NUTS 3 regions) would enhance the response to the local needs and challenges faced by local authorities and improve the place-based character of EU cohesion policy.

The main rationale behind the production of a TIA is that the large majority of EU-funded programmes and policies have indirect or direct impacts on most of the dimensions of territorial development. Taking into account that, in the set of public policy instruments of the European Union Cohesion Policy 2014–2020, regional smart specialisation strategies (RIS3) were one of its most important ‘flagships’ and that its relevance will be reinforced in the 2021–2027 programming period, it is crucial to continue to deepen and refine the application of Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) approaches to RIS3’s design, monitoring and evaluation processes. Thus, the main objective of this chapter is to contribute to the construction of a more integrated and multidimensional approach with regard to the application of TIA to RIS3’s implementation and management.