Territorial Performance Monitoring ESPON TPM project Loris Servillo

Territorial Performance Monitoring (ESPON TPM project) Loris Servillo ASRO – KU Leuven 14/06/2012

Outline General approach & Aim Structure: quantitative & qualitative analysis Mind map Road map General (methodological) considerations

Stakeholders • ESPON priority 2 • Five regions: • Flanders (lead stakeholder) • North Rhine-Westphalia • Navarre • Catalunia • Greatest Dublin Area

Project team • Lead Partner: IGEAT - Institut de Gestion de l'Environnement et d'Aménagement du Territoire - ULB • Research partner for each region: • Catalunia: Institut d'Estudis Territorial • Navarra: Navarra de Suelo Residencial • Greater Dublin Region: National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis – University Maynooth • Nordrhein-Westfalen: Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung • Flanders: Planning & Development Research group, ASRO – KULeuven (+ coordination of qualitative analysis)

ESPON TPM project • The ESPON Territorial Performance Monitoring (TPM) project addressed two main lines of work: a general assessment and development of tools for regional monitoring of challenges defined at other scales the practical application of the tools and ideas for monitoring the five stakeholder regions involved in the project

ESPON TPM project The aim of this project (not to provide some form of “Dummy's guide to monitoring”) a reflection on the issue of translating European challenges into regional realities a mean to assess the current monitoring practices in regions an exchange of best practices between stakeholder regions based on their monitoring experience a laboratory to elaborate and test different techniques and tools for monitoring A particular issue brought forward by the stakeholders was the integration of qualitative information into a fields generally dominated by quantitative measurement.

Challenges Perception and levers identified in stakeholder regions – Demography • – Climate change • – technically managing impacts of climate change New energy paradigm • – manage impacts of external immigration and ageing objectives determined at European level and on policies implemented at national level Globalisation • most regions quite autonomous to include relevant policies

Methods Quantitative Qualitative Generalisation/coverage Exploration/depth Major differences Statistical relationships generalisable results Limited set of questions Restict data collection more in-depth examination less generalisable (based on a smaller group of involved persons) Simplification of reality Complexity hard, objective, numeric data informal approaches to capture differences holistic approach Objectivity Interpretation Statistically sound methods Objective data sets allow generalisations Interpretation processes Risk of being “just a bit more than organised common sense”

Combined methodology • Quantitative measures Simple benchmarking with or without comparison with the EU (ESPON 5 -level approach) + interpretation, contextualization, . . . • Qualitative assessment Based on expertise, surveys, delphi, focus groups. . . Possibly elaboration of pseudo-quantitative indicators

Mind Map Global challenges Demography Globalisation Energy Climate change

General structure of the project

Qualitative analysis: appraisal questions • Awareness of the challenge (per challenge) • Explicitly/implicitly addressed • Discourses, forcasting capacity • Planning context and resilience of the Planning System • Strategic capacity (vision and implementation) • Coordination, cooperation & participation • Monitoring capacity • Effectiveness of policy approach(es) • Policy bundles • Encompassing strategy? Whose competences? (policy level) • Coordination capacities • Threats – Opportunities

Structure of the qualitative analysis Researchers Stakeholders Analysis of documents Questionnaire and / or semi-structured interviews Identification of crucial and contradicting aspects Second round of stakeholders’ involvement Final Reports (Set of ranked items) • Desktop analysis done by the different project partners; • Two-step procedure of involvement of stakeholders: 1. questionnaire / semistructured interviews; 2. feedback on first outcomes. Different techniques can be tested (focus group, or simple singular feedback from the quantitative stakeholders, ranking analysis technique, etc)

Toward tailor-made tools From the mind map to a tailor-made set of indicators Discussion with each stakeholder Identification of specific indicators Confrontation about the regional perception of the challenges

EU-wide quantitative benchmarking Hyper. Atlas

EU-wide quantitative benchmarking: TPM Tools

Indicators indicators reflecting a situation and its evolution, but on which the territorial level considered – here mostly the regions – has no influence indicators reflecting supra-regional constraints for which the regions may have to implement policies established on a larger scale, sometimes even at the expense of their own short-term interests another version of the previous type consists in indicators reflecting constraints and policies present on supra-regional scales, for which a measurement on the regional scale is not necessarily relevant, but which can reflect the pursuit of other objectives indicators reflecting regional situations on which regional authorities can actually have some influence through their own policies. indicators that do not reflect regional realities, but rather the implementation of policies

Outcome and general recommendations

Regional monitoring tools • Regions that have adopted the TPM indicators • Regions that have embedded the TPM experience in their own monitoring activity/activities and adapted to the regional characteristics/needs • Regions that have implemented the monitoring activities at lower level (differences within the regions)

Methodological recommendations Ideal (technocratic) model

Methodological recommendations Conditions of success of monitoring in regional policy making: • integration of monitoring system into clear/explicit vision • clearly defined procedures on how to react to findings of the monitoring system • sufficient resources for continuous update and maintenance • shared ownership • a continuous “surveillance” of European policy discussions and documents • relative political “neutrality” of monitoring system • long-term commitment to the monitoring process • permanent fora of contact with relevant experts

Methodological recommendations What can ESPON do to support monitoring efforts in regions ? Thematic research, including elaboration of innovative indicators and typologies Continuous development of tools such as the ESPON Database and the ESPON Hyper. Atlas Sustained maintenance of datasets, tailored to specific challenges, and specific European objectives

Thank you loris. servillo@asro. kuleuven. be