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ESPON 2020 Programme

The ESPON 2020 Programme aims at promoting and fostering a European territorial dimension in development and cooperation by providing evidence, knowledge transfer and policy learning to public authorities and other policy actors at all levels.

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ESPON 2020 Programme

The ESPON 2020 Programme aims at promoting and fostering a European territorial dimension in development and cooperation by providing evidence, knowledge transfer and policy learning to public authorities and other policy actors at all levels. The programme is adopted by the European Commission on 12 February 2015.

Mission

ESPON 2020 shall continue the consolidation of a European Territorial Observatory Network and grow the provision and policy use of pan-European, comparable, systematic and reliable territorial evidence.

Main objectives

The objective of the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme is to support the reinforcement of the effectiveness of EU Cohesion Policy and other sectoral policies and programmes under European Structural Investment (ESI) funds as well as national and regional territorial development policies, through the production, dissemination and promotion of territorial evidence covering the entire territory of the 28 EU Members States, as well as 4 Partner States of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

Target Groups

Primary target groups are:

  • European policymakers, in particular in the field of Cohesion Policy as well as other relevant sectoral and thematic policies and programmes, particularly those currently not fully articulating their territorial approach.
  • National policymakers and practitioners responsible for territorial cohesion, ETC programmes, macro-regional strategies and Cohesion Policy preparation and implementation at national level, as well as other relevant policy fields.
  • Authorities implementing ESI Funding programmes and preparing periodical reporting.
  • Regional and local policymakers and practitioners responsible for territorial development and planning and/or involved in cross-border, transnational and macro-regional cooperation.

As secondary target groups, the following actors are important as receivers and users of territorial evidence:

  • Organisations promoting different regional/urban interests at EU level.
  • University academics, both researchers and students as future decision makers.
  • The private sector and wider European audiences.
  • As the providers of the research capacity and scientific excellence for ESPON 2020, academics, scientists and researchers are important for ESPON 2020 outputs. Indirectly, the actions and corresponding activities of ESPON 2020 will therefore benefit the scientific community within Europe in the field of territorial research.