Territorial Monitoring for the Baltic Sea Region (BSR-TeMo) - ESPON 2013

Thematic scope

European policy with the Lisbon Treaty includes the aim of territorial cohesion. There is therefore a need to innovate and develop monitoring systems for territorial development that can support policy makers at different levels in order to contribute to European competitiveness and cohesion.

The stronger political focus and improved understanding of structures, trends and scenarios influencing territorial development highlights the need to improve the monitoring also at macro regional level.

This ESPON project shall support evidence informed territorial development and cohesion in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) by developing an indicator based monitoring system. This monitoring system shall comprehend a policy dimension, related to the promotion of territorial cohesion in the Baltic Sea Region, and a methodological dimension aimed at developing a tool (indicator based) for monitoring the territorial development in the Baltic Sea Region.

This will contribute to increased knowledge and understanding of territorial cohesion processes in the BSR and at the same time allow for a comparison and benchmarking with other European regions and macro-regions. It will also support the contribution of the BSR to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe as mentioned in the EU2020 Strategy.

Please read more about the main research areas and main results envisaged.

Scientific support to policy development

• Illustrate and support the understanding of territorial structures and trends at different scales for different types of regions across the BSR. Providing evidence on the regional diversity, the situation and progress on main territorial challenges of the BSR: east-west divide, north-south divide, urban-rural divide
• The use of European-level data for comparison and benchmarking purposes as well as regional/local data to focus on specific challenges most important for the BSR region
• Provide an indicator based monitoring system, complemented with some qualitative information, which allows a continuous monitoring and benchmarking of the territorial development of the BSR at European level, in relation to other macro regions and internally at regional and local scales.