ESPON Programme

27/10/2026

☀️ What if climate action could create value for your business — and your community?
Pescara's Local Green Deals are built on public-private collaboration, bringing together the municipality, businesses, public institutions and citizens to co-design climate actions, make shared commitments and mobilise resources and investments for the green transition.
The idea is simple: organisations don’t just get consulted about the transition — they help co-design it, make voluntary commitments and contribute to implementation and investment.
For businesses and other private partners, that can mean opportunities to:
⚡ invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency
🔄 support circular economy and industrial innovation
🤝 collaborate with other organisations on shared challenges
📈 connect climate action with competitiveness, resilience and operational efficiency
🌱 involve employees, customers, suppliers and wider networks in the transition.
For citizens, the CER PESCARA Renewable Energy Community creates an opportunity where residents, businesses and public institutions can collectively produce and share renewable electricity. The community already has around 400 members and approximately 220 kWp of installed photovoltaic capacity. Well done!
And the results are becoming tangible: photovoltaic installations on municipal buildings have reached approximately 1,808 kWp, covering around 32% of public-building electricity demand and avoiding an estimated 1,325 tonnes of CO₂ each year.
💡 The green transition works better when everyone has a stake in it.

https://www.espon.eu/projects/itdaz-ireland-targeted-analysis-decarbonisation-zones

14/10/2026

06/10/2026

Leaving your hometown should be a choice—not a necessity. 🏡 🇪🇺

In the latest episode of Europe Talks Back, Léa Marchal speaks with Eurofound researcher Eleonora Peruffo and Cluj-Napoca mayor Emil Boc about how to ensure that people who choose to stay in the places they call home have genuine opportunities to build a fulfilling future.

It takes more than jobs. Affordable housing, accessible services, connectivity and good governance all shape whether people can stay - or return.

🎙️ Produced by Europod in cooperation with ESPON the episode connects research with local experience, drawing on ESPON projects and publications. These include RURALPLAN, which explores how shrinking rural communities can adapt and pursue sustainable futures beyond traditional growth models.

The challenge? Give every place reasons to stay—without limiting anyone’s freedom to move.

🎧 Tune in and join the conversation: what would make the biggest difference in your region?

https://loom.ly/5VFfg1o

30/09/2026

What should European cities do to better use green infrastructure?
How many case studies across all ESPON projects relate to Germany?
What is the difference between European Research Projects and Targeted Analyses?

🙋For questions like these, ask ESPON.

🤖Our new ESPON AI assistant is ready to help users explore ESPON’s knowledge base: projects, publications, data, case studies and territorial evidence. It searches across our content and responds with links and references to the original sources, making it easier to move from a question to evidence.

Built and hosted in the European Union, ESPON AI offers a new way to navigate territorial knowledge — whether you work on regional development, urban policy, cohesion policy or European territorial cooperation.

❓Can anyone use it?👇

Yes. First, register on the ESPON website - it is a simple process - and you can start using the assistant.
A note of transparency: ESPON AI is still learning. Like any new team member, it can make mistakes. Please check the linked sources, use your professional judgement and help us improve it through your feedback.

Read more and start using it today: https://loom.ly/PhPALBc

29/09/2026

Europe’s digital sovereignty will be shaped by thousands of practical decisions made by cities and regions.

Which digital systems do they procure? How do they protect essential public services? Who controls and can use public data? And do they have the capacity to deploy AI securely, transparently and without creating new dependencies?

In their TeritoriALL article, Anke Schuster and Marek Bobis explain why local and regional authorities are central to delivering Europe’s digital strategy on the ground. Ambitions around digital sovereignty need to be matched by local capacity—in infrastructure, cybersecurity, data and AI, and digital innovation.

Tools such as ESPON’s LORDIMAS Digital Maturity Assessment can help local and regional authorities assess their readiness and play an active role in delivering Europe’s digital strategy.

Read their article in the latest issue of TeritoriALL.
https://loom.ly/0mBHo1Q

23/09/2026

If hosting territories only bear the spatial pressures of clean power while high-value supply chains, skilled jobs, and capital cluster elsewhere, the green transition risks deepening regional inequalities rather than narrowing them.

At the ESPON Seminar in Cork alongside the Irish EU Council Presidency, we examine how spatial planning and regional policy must respond:

📈Capturing local economic returns to ensure communities that provide the land and infrastructure see direct benefits in jobs, revenue, and cheaper power

🚧Unblocking grid bottlenecks so that peripheral regions can attract new industries instead of just exporting raw electricity

⚖️Managing spatial competition by balancing large energy installations with farming, environmental conservation, and local community needs

Register today and join us in Cork

https://loom.ly/swg6LKs

21/09/2026

Do we need a Silicon Valley in every European Region?
Not necessarily.

"A place, for once, need not host the research to capture the return" writes Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

In his latest article for TerritoriALL, he argues that the real territorial opportunity lies in AI adoption: helping firms, public authorities and communities to use AI to improve everyday work, productivity and public services.

For regions operating below the technological frontier, this could be a significant opportunity. Adopting AI generally requires fewer resources and less specialised expertise than creating frontier technologies, while its benefits can reach a far wider range of places.

The challenge is to lower the barriers to responsible use, build local capacity and ensure that the benefits are shared across Europe’s territories.

Read Making AI work where it matters most in the latest issue of TeritoriALL:

https://loom.ly/xfqe39M

15/09/2026

The Power of Interreg! Join the four Interregional Interreg Programmes for an interactive debate on the present and the future of Interregional Cooperation.

A parallel event to , at the Press Club Brussels on 12 October -at 16.30. Secure your place in time

Register today
https://loom.ly/Z-pPq-E

09/09/2026

TerritoriALL Issue 19 is out!

In this issue: Sovereignty starts in the regions: through the energy systems they build, the technologies they govern and the choices they make.

- Claragh Mulhern sets out the Irish Presidency’s vision for competitiveness and cohesion through Project Ireland 2040.
- Professor Frances Fahy explains why a just energy transition requires capacity, trust and meaningful community participation.
- David Sventek shows how Czechia’s Moravian-Silesian Region is turning the coal transition into industrial renewal.
- Professor Andrés Rodríguez-Pose argues that AI’s real opportunity lies in adoption by local firms, public services and communities.
- Alberto Cirio presents Piedmont’s approach to building an AI ecosystem around regional strengths.
- Anke Schuster and Marek Bobis, from the European Committee of the Regions, explain why digital sovereignty will be delivered locally.

Also in this issue: smarter land use, stronger transport-corridor governance, cooperation across Europe’s sea basins, and what territorial-development practitioners think about AI.

Read it here 👇

https://loom.ly/UzxwTwM

31/08/2026

How many Europeans commute cross-border for work?

The numbers expose major contrasts, highlighting massive commuter outflows toward Luxembourg and Switzerland alongside borders where movement remains minimal.

While the data relies on estimates, commuting remains one of the most reliable flows for identifying functional linkages between regions.

Interested to know more? Check out our ESPON CROSSGOV Atlas, a comprehensive collection of territorial indicators (gathering 21 indicators and potential cross-border functional areas) for users who would like to explore the data and tailor observations to their own requirements.

Find out more about the Atlas and the CROSSGOV project on our website
https://loom.ly/5Rzjfho