Making ESPON knowledge more tangible for detecting regional potentials and challenges : five territorial approaches

The ESPON DeTeC (Detecting Territorial Potential and Challenges) project has developed five territorial approaches that can support regional stakeholders in revealing and detecting challenges and potential within a wider territorial context from a European perspective. The objective of this article is to present these approaches, which can be used to make ESPON knowledge more tangible and which can help in navigating through the inherent tensions, associated with the policy concept of territorial cohesion. In doing so, the article provides at first a brief introduction to the concept of territorial cohesion, a presentation and discussion of the territorial approaches with a particular focus on how they address exogenous challenges and endogenous potentials, conceptualize regional territories within relational spaces, and finally, how they direct attention towards territorial governance and the fluidity of scales and places. It is a practice oriented article that in conclusion discusses how territorial approaches can provide guidance for strategic local and regional policy making and how they help to open up new perspectives in local and regional development through the application of ESPON knowledge.
ESPON DeTeC