The BRIDGES project needs you!

BRIDGES is a European-wide project targeting territories with geographical specificities i.e. mountain areas, islands, coastal areas, and sparsely populated areas. The project is funded by the ESPON EGTC.

According to the project partners, key policy documents now identify these specific territories in two ways: as having particular challenges, and as having particular assets, benefitting to Europe as a whole. Gaining a better understanding of the territories with geographic specificities and their relevant challenges and opportunities is therefore crucial for the European policy dialogue and debate for developing Cohesion Policy post-2020 and a renewed Territorial Agenda for Europe which is due to be adopted by 2021.

BRIDGES has developed a survey to identify policy fields that are of critical importance for the development of territories with geographical specificities and for which there is an added value of EU-level strategies, incentives or regulations.

They would like to get feedback from organisations that are involved in shaping development policies with an integrated territorial perspective. The target group will therefore primarily be public authorities. It will be possible for officials of these authorities to express their personal view. They should not hesitate to use the comment field at the end of the survey to specify the status of their input. Individual answers will not be communicated to any third parties.

• Link to the mountain survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QZJY9JL
• Link to the sparsely populated area survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q52ZLSF
• Estimated time to complete the survey: 10-15 minutes
  Deadline for response: 21 December 2018

An ESPON BRIDGES study on “Balanced Regional Development in areas with Geographic Specificities” will then be published in March 2019. It will contribute to establish a list of issues to be prioritised in the dialogue between regional stakeholders, Member States and the European Commission on policy needs in territories with geographical specificities.