Where everyday mobility meets tourism : an age-friendly perspective on cycling in the Netherlands and the UK

Tourism is traditionally presented as an escape from daily life and located at places we do not normally visit. Against a backdrop of problematic pressures on (urban) tourist centres and mobility systems, some scholars have explored the possibility of tourism nearer the home. Such locations, however, are often perceived too mundane or are not sufficiently equipped as tourist destinations. In addition, the study of tourist experiences is often dominated by motorised transport, and with limited consideration of older age groups. This paper combines different strands of literature to consider the role of active mobility among older people and its contribution to age-friendliness and more proximate forms of tourism. Two case studies in the contrasting mobility contexts of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom show how everyday mobility contains implicit and explicit tourism elements. Commutes, local visits, and active travel itself may act as springboards for tourism close(r) to home. Using biographical and mobile methods, this paper shows how local tourism roots in individual lifecourses, depends on the transport environment, and supports social and physical well-being. The findings provide much-needed empirical insight in the convergence of tourism and everyday mobilities, and underline the growing importance of slower and more age-friendly approaches to tourism

Energy Transition in Europe's Coal Regions : Issues for Regional Policy

Climate change is generating new pressures for transition in coal intensive regions. The 2016 Paris Climate Agreement has led to new strategies and targets for reducing climate emissions at EU and national levels. Decarbonisation of the energy sector is a vital component of these strategies. The EU aims to reduce climate emissions from the energy sector by at least 54 percent by 2030 (compared to 1990) and at least 93 percent by 2050. These targets imply a shift out of coal-mining and coal-fired power in coming decades. Coal transition requires regional policy intervention. Coal production and power stations are inevitably concentrated in particular places, and also typically become linked into other regional sectors and supply chains, as well as political, social and cultural networks, which support economic development but can also inhibit economic transition. Coal production in the Europe-30 is concentrated in specific regions in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania. Germany and Poland together account for 54 percent of the EU’s coal-related climate emissions. EU Cohesion policy 2021-27 is expected to include a focus on the carbon-free economy, including energy transition. This could include support for coal transition regions e.g. through an Energy Transition Fund. Wider EU support is seen in the Coal Regions in Transition Platform, as well as in INTERREG and HORIZON projects. National regional policies are also targeting coal regions. Poland’s coal sector has seen major restructuring since 1990 but it remains an important regional employer. Poland is committed to meeting international targets on climate emissions and energy transition but also faces the need to ensure energy supply and regional employment. The Programme for Silesia supports a shift from traditional sectors such as coal towards future-oriented sectors. Germany is committed to the phasing-out of coal-fired power in order to meet climate targets. In 2019, the federal government agreed an ambitious programme of support for the transition of the remaining brown coal regions, with €40 billion of federal funding to 2038. Historic experiences of coal transition suggest the need for future policies to prioritise a long-term, well-funded and multi-faceted strategic approach, drawing on the participation of a wide range of stakeholders at multiple levels, and including efforts to generate new ideas, mobilise regional capacities and reconfigure social capital, as well as to involve local communities in transition

Regional Policy and the Urban Paradox : Reinforcing the Urban Dimension in a Time of Crisis

Long-term processes of urbanisation and agglomeration in Europe pose complex but crucial questions for regional policymakers. There are substantial national and sub-national differences in the size and spatial distribution of urban developments and the pace and direction of urbanisation but a fundamental challenge is how to address the ‘urban paradox’. This means simultaneously supporting the economic engine of urban agglomerations while counteracting social and economic inequalities arising within urban areas and between urban centres and other territories. Global ‘megatrends’, including digitalisation and technological progress, demographic transition and climate change have specific urban impacts that further underline the importance of regional policy interventions in urban development processes. Increasing policy attention is also being paid to the role of socalled ‘second order’ or medium-sized towns outside of large urban agglomerations in supporting territorially balanced development. In designing interventions that address urban development processes, regional policymakers must engage with a range of economic, social and environmental issues and measures which often overlap in terms of scope, spatial scales, remits and priorities. Regulatory, institutional or administrative barriers must also be overcome. Recent regional policy initiatives are responding to this by following the ‘place-based’ model and pursuing an integrated approach. Integrated interventions are capturing complex interactions between urban and regional development. Policy governance initiatives, including organisational reforms at national or sub-national levels and increasingly prominent negotiated or ‘deal based’ structures are coordinating inputs from national, regional and urban stakeholders. New development strategies are providing frameworks for increased coordination of regional and urban priorities, either through delineating functional spaces or by setting specific thematic objectives, for instance covering the role of cities in innovation or sustainable development. Particularly prominent in these interventions are the exploration of urban-rural linkages, the evolution of the ‘smart city’ agenda and the use of negotiated city-region strategies. The COVID-19 crisis is raising important questions for policymakers addressing the relationship between urban and regional development. There are strong arguments for further integration but the pressures created by the pandemic could prompt policy divergence

Best Practice Report : Smart Specialisation Strategies and SET plan implementation actions

This report describes how countries and regions are successfully putting into practice the principles of Smart Specialisation, drawing lessons for TRACER partner regions. Smart Specialisation suggests that the most effective way to deliver innovation, and ultimately regional or national economic development, is to concentrate public and private interventions and resources on a limited number of priorities, based on national/regional strengths. The three case study regions explored in detail in this report – South Limburg (Netherlands), Asturias (Spain) and North-Rhine Westphalia (Germany) - share a history in coal mining, while being diverse in terms of their geographies, transition stages and sectors of specialisation. However, within these different contexts, Smart Specialisation strategies have played a key role in the innovation focus of such regions and in their transition out of coal, partly using the competitive advantages they may have in the production and transportation of energy sources. Besides their Smart Specialisation strategies, the mining history, wider transition policies, challenges and change-enabling conditions show how (former) coal regions have been handling economic diversification and structural adaptation. Together, the longitudinal historical processes and current innovation strategies that shape these regions may be an important resource for S3 and wider transition policies in coal-intensive regions elsewhere. Finally, the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan has been the research and innovation pillar of the EU's energy and climate policy since 2007, coordinating low-carbon research and innovation activities in EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. The SET Plan helps structure European and national research programmes and triggers substantial investments on common priorities in low-carbon technologies. The implementation of SET Plan Implementation Plans is currently not directly linked with existing R&I strategies for the transition in coal intensive regions. However, the coming years will produce opportunities and potential synergies for SET Plan Implementation Plans with activities in most TRACER target regions facilitating their transition towards a sustainable energy system. Further, TRACER target regions can potentially learn from the best practice projects linked to achieving SET Plan targets

Analysis of the Coordination of EU Funding Programmes in Selected EU Member States

ESIF funding to the Czech Republic is expected to decline after 2020, due to an EU-level shift towards other budget headings. A key priority is therefore to assess opportunities to increase revenue from other EU funding programmes in future, notably those where projects are selected at EU level on a competitive basis i.e. where the budget allocated to the Czech Republic is not pre-determined. One possible means of increasing receipts from EU funding programmes could be to improve coordination between Czech entities responsible for managing and implementing ESIF and other EU programmes. This study examines varied approaches to the coordination of ESIF and directly-managed EU funding programmes (COSME, Creative Europe, EaSI, Horizon 2020, and LIFE) in four Member States (Austria, Belgium, Estonia and Spain) and provides recommendations for improving coordination in the Czech Republic. It examines coordination at three levels (strategic planning; OP-level management and implementation; and project level engagement and implementation) and considers different intensities of coordination (active cooperation, consultation and dialogue, exchange of information and experience, and complementarity and coherence). Coordination may be hindered by political, institutional and cognitive lock-in to existing networks and routines. Development policies (e.g. smart specialisation strategies or place-based approaches) often aim to open up the development process and funding opportunities to a wider range of stakeholders and to stimulate new forms of coordination and cooperation. High-level political commitment and practical incentives are needed to ensure that new ideas and connections are implemented and maintained over time. Boundary spanners and cross-sectoral forums can help to build and nurture connections across sectoral, thematic and organisational boundaries

Projections for the Transition to 2030/2050 in the Target Regions

[Abstract unavailable

Technical Concepts for the Transition of the Energy System into a Smart, Sustainable and Renewable Energy System in the TRACER Target Regions

This report shows a status on the current energy generation technologies using coal as feedstock for each TRACER target region. This includes the analysis of the coal driven power plants, CHP plants, as well as the use of coal for small applications, e.g. space heating. The investigations include the used technologies, age of the installations, efficiency, emissions, capacities and economies. Furthermore, the current status of other energy generation technologies in the target regions, based on gas, oil and renewable energies is analysed. This report will determine the level of the energy transition from a fossil-based economy towards an emission-free economy. Thereby, the technological challenges and opportunities will be identified, e.g. the technical integration of decentralised renewable energy technologies in the existing infrastructure (e.g. district heating, power grid). Another challenge may include the potential use of post-mining land for renewable energy installations, like PV or biomass production. Opportunities include all aspects related to the carbon-free and renewable technologies that could allow more participation of the public in the sector and having a large positive social impact. The final outcome of this report is a technical transition concept for each TRACER target region, that includes proposals for the stepwise technical energy transition towards an efficient emission-free energy sector, using renewable energy technologies, such as solar, wind, hydropower or biomass

Report on Social Challenges and Re-skilling Needs of the Workforce Solutions in the TRACER Target Regions

Over time, mankind has understood that change is always present in all areas of its life - from the internal environment of each person, to the external environment, and up to the macrocosmic level. What shocks, lately, are the dynamics / speed, complexity and magnitude of change; „Change that involves people is a transition according to Bridges, and people are the essence of any process of change.” (Mergner, Janssen, Mandic Lukic, 2020, p.10). The year 2020, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken humanity "by surprise and unprepared" and which will cause a major transition on all levels of human life, will symbolize the "year of restart" or the beginning of a global reengineering process. Thus, in the complex issue of the transition from carbon-intensive areas in the context of the TRACER project appeared this new component - not negligible, which influences all forecasts, models and scenarios on social challenges and future skills needs of the TRACER target regions. The latest COVID-19 crisis has shaken many “certainties” we have had about labour market needs, job requirements and work environment. Many employers have faced decisions on human resources practices, such as: the opportunity to use remote teams; the replacement of formal meetings with various review substitutes; the empowerment of employees to exercise self-reflection in order to align their assignments to the new work constraints etc. One of the effects of this new context is that it has challenged organisational common places and routines, some of which have proven no longer useful, if in the nature of the case the organisation cannot any longer comply with one-on-one and face-toface interaction. While deprived of physical presence of teams and immediate managerial control, contemporary societies have shown the radical constructivist characteristics of some of their settings. In mining regions facing structural transitions one of the challenges to re-skilling is given by the relentless lingering of local actors to old ways of “doing things” (from managing communities to identifying labour market opportunities and needs). Maybe for such a time as this the various stakeholders of mining regions should show more versatility to innovative proposals that might have been out of sight a decade ago

Smart strategies for the transition in coal intensive regions

The TRACER project supports a number of coal-intensive regions around Europe to design (or re-design) their Research and Innovation (R&I) strategies in order to facilitate their transition towards a sustainable energy system. The TRACER consortium consists of different target regions: South East Bulgaria, North West Bohemia - Czech Republic, Lusatian Lignite District - Germany, Western Macedonia - Greece, Upper Silesian Coalfield - Poland, West Region, Jiu Valley - Romania, Wales – UK, Kolubara - Serbia, Donetsk - Ukraine. Core activities of TRACER include the implementation of an EDP (Entrepreneurial Discovery Process) to mobilise a wide range of stakeholders in each target region to develop an appropriate governance structure and to bring regional stakeholders together to discuss and agree on a shared vision and priorities for coal transition. R&I strategies, industrial roadmaps and decision support tools will be developed jointly with key stakeholders of the TRACER target regions. Further TRACER activities include the identification and analysis of best practice examples of successful and ambitious transition processes in coal intensive regions, a detailed assessment of social, environmental and technological challenges, the elaboration of guidelines on how to mobilise investment as well as dedicated activities to stimulate R&I cooperation among coal intensive regions in Europe and beyond

Enhancing Regional Cooperation in the Netherlands Through the Regional Budget

The Dutch national government Rutte III (2017- ) has launched a new approach to regional policy – the Regional Budget – which is a national instrument that can be accessed by self-governing regional partnerships. It also embodies a number of important themes in regional policy reforms across Europe. It awards funding competitively and aims to stimulate bottom-up regional coalitions and initiatives, with a view to unlocking added value via regional empowerment, but can also allocate funding to specific structurally weaker regions. Further, it targets a ‘Broad Definition of Welfare’ – i.e. wellbeing or quality of life – rather than simply economic growth. Against a background of broader measures (e.g. Top Sectors policy, City Deals), regional economic development policies have become spread across different national Ministries, while the sub-national dimensions of policies such as spatial planning and infrastructure have intensified. These reforms have also led to increased debate on potential scope for greater fiscal equalisation, as municipalities and provinces continue to rely on central government funds. With these issues in mind, this briefing examines Dutch regional inequalities and introduces the Regional Budget as an attempt to relocate economic development tasks and budgets to the regional level