European Regional Development Fund
European Regional Development Fund

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-07-13

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780215046741

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The abolition of the Regional Development Agencies removed the main source of match funding for ERDF sponsored projects, and the economic downturn has curbed alternative options for match funding even further. There is a pressing need to spend each region's ERDF allocation before 2015, but unless ministers take urgent steps to deliver on the Government's promise to make it easier for projects to secure match funding through the Regional Growth Fund, there is a significant risk that value for money will suffer and ERDF will not make the impact it could to help rebalance the UK's economy. The Committee endorses a number of sensible rule changes that will govern the next ERDF round (2014-20) currently proposed and related proposals to give Member States the power to tailor the size of their Operational Programme areas - which could permit Local Economic Partnerships in England to take responsibility for managing EU funds. MPs also challenge the current allocation system where even the wealthiest Member States receive some ERDF funding when a portion of what they pay in originally gets recycled back to them. The cross party group of MPs calls for this 'circular money flow' to end, and for England to retain this portion of funding to deliver its own regional policy. The Government would have to guarantee the same level of funding across the EU's 7 year funding cycle. This change would not affect the Government's contribution to ERDF for the poorer Member States. Lastly, MPs challenge the Government to evaluate the value for money of ERDF funded projects

Governing Sustainability in the EU
Governing Sustainability in the EU

Author: Ekaterina Domorenok

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1315314983

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Governing Sustainability in the EU examines the recent novelties in the EU agenda for sustainable development, illustrating how the process of policy change has occurred at different levels, comprising general priorities, specific objectives and policy instruments. The book focuses on the evolution of the principle of policy integration and analyses its implementation by specific policy instruments across three policy areas: energy efficiency (the Covenant of Mayors), innovation (the Eco-Innovation Programme) and regional development (ERDF regional programmes regarding sustainable urban development). It specifically examines two domestic contexts (Italy and the UK) with the aim of understanding how the goals and means envisaged by the EU have been translated into concrete policy practices on the ground, and which factors have influenced the creation of new policy and governance practices necessary for the achievement of sustainable development objectives. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of sustainable development, European Union Politics, and Environmental Politics.

The Regional Growth Fund
The Regional Growth Fund

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-05-11

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9780102977097

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This report on the government fund to support private sector jobs and growth in places that rely on the public sector, the Regional Growth Fund, finds that the initial £1.4 billion investment could result in some 41,000 more full-time-equivalent private sector jobs in the economy than without the Fund. However, there was scope to have generated more jobs relative to the amount of grant awarded. The Fund has not optimised value for money because a significant proportion of the funds were allocated to projects that offer relatively few jobs for the money invested. The report concludes that applying tighter controls over the value for money offered by individual bids and then allocating funding across more bidding rounds could have created thousands more jobs from the same resources. Rigorous evaluation will be required to quantify precisely the Fund's overall employment impact. More than two thirds (28,000) of the 41,000 additional jobs are expected to be delivered indirectly, for example through knock-on effects in companies' supply chains or the wider economy. The average project will last at least seven years. However, it is not clear how much of the Fund's boost to the private sector will be sustained in the longer term. It has also taken longer than expected to turn conditional offers of grants for projects into final offers. Therefore, despite the government's intention to get projects up and running quickly, only around a third have so far received final offers of funding

Funding the Greek Crisis
Funding the Greek Crisis

Author: Constantinos Ikonomou

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2018-06-15

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0128145676

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How does one distinguish between European Union investments that improve welfare and those that create economic malaise? Funding the Greek Crisis: The European Union, Cohesion Policies, and the Great Recession explores the sources of the Greek Crisis that lie primarily in EU policies that appeared to have worked better for other countries but not for Greece. Without overly simplifying the Greek condition, it provides insights into policies the countries of the euro area may need to implement in order to ensure collective cohesion and individual success. Arguing that EU preferences for autonomous investments discouraged organic development with lasting implications, Funding the Greek Crisis sheds new light on the nature of regional competitiveness and public economics. - Encompasses public economics, macroeconomics, international trade, competitiveness, microeconomics and regional development studies - Sheds light on key policies that affect millions of EU citizens - Examines Solow's growth model - Provides a different way of explaining growth from real business cycle theory

Advances in the Theory and Practice of Smart Specialization
Advances in the Theory and Practice of Smart Specialization

Author: Slavo Radosevic

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2017-08-17

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 0128041595

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Regional growth in the European Union hinges to a large extent on smart specialization, a new and exciting theme in economic innovation studies. Advances in the Theory and Practice of Smart Specialization illuminates problems that have stifled the implementation of smart specialization policies, such as unique regional constraints and the inter-dependent demands of economic growth and commercial development. Forward-looking and pragmatic, it provides guidance for developing smart specialization strategies both to those involved in European affairs and others grappling with regional innovation and economic development worldwide. - Emphasizes specific contexts for smart specialization, its international approach and institutional preconditions - Examines comparable initiatives worldwide - Explains how to implement smart specialization policies given different development levels of regions and countries

EU Cohesion Policy
EU Cohesion Policy

Author: John Bachtler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-10-26

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1315401843

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The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. This book brings together academics, members of European institutions, and regional and national level policymakers in order to assess the performance and direction of EU Cohesion policy against the background of the most significant reforms to the policy in a generation. Responding to past criticisms of the effectiveness of the policy, the policy changes introduced in 2013 have aligned European Structural and Investment Funds with the Europe 2020 strategy and introduced measures to improve strategic coherence, performance and integrated development. EU Cohesion Policy: Reassessing performance and direction argues that policy can only be successfully developed and implemented if there is input from both academics and practitioners. The chapters in the book address four important issues: the effectiveness and impact of Cohesion policy at European, national and regional levels; the contribution of Cohesion policy to the Europe 2020 strategy of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; the importance of quality of government and administrative capacity for the effective management of the Funds; and the inter-relationships between institutions, territory and place-based policies. The volume will be an invaluable resource to students, academics and policymakers across economics, regional studies, European studies and international relations.

A 'Macro-regional' Europe in the Making
A 'Macro-regional' Europe in the Making

Author: Stefan Gänzle

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-10-19

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1137509724

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Macro-regional strategies seek to improve the interplay of the EU with existing regimes and institutions, and foster coherence of transnational policies. Drawing on macro-regional governance and Europeanization, this edited volume provides an overview of processes of macro-regionalization in Europe displaying evidence of their significant impact.

Inequalities in the UK
Inequalities in the UK

Author: David Fée

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2017-11-17

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1787144801

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This book addresses the question of the extent of and responses to inequalities in the UK in 2017 in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession and provides an up-to-date account of the distribution of inequalities, the evolving ways they are measured/addressed as well as the changing perception of inequalities by the general public and policy-makers.

Europe's Lifelong Learning Markets, Governance and Policy
Europe's Lifelong Learning Markets, Governance and Policy

Author: Marcella Milana

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-07-20

Total Pages: 495

ISBN-13: 3030380696

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This book explores European governance and policy coordination within lifelong learning markets. Using an instruments approach, the editors and contributors examine the ways in which governance mechanisms employed by the European Union influence policy to regulate lifelong learning, and intervene in lifelong learning markets, at both European and national levels. Filling an important gap in the current literature, this book examines how strengthened policy coordination at the EU level contributed to the blurring of boundaries between policy fields and the redefinition of the function of adult education after the 2008 recession. Divided into three parts, this book draws on a range of case studies from countries including Spain, Denmark, Bulgaria and the UK. It will be of interest and value to students and scholars of education policy and governance, adult education and lifelong learning.

Selected Papers from 27th European Biomass Conference & Exhibition (EUBCE 2019)
Selected Papers from 27th European Biomass Conference & Exhibition (EUBCE 2019)

Author: David Baxter

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2021-09-02

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 303650804X

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This book draws together a small selection of full-length papers based on presentations given at the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition held in Lisbon, Portugal in 2019. The topics covered, which reflect the breadth of the program of the EUBCE conference itself, include biomass sources, various aspects of technologies used for the conversion of biomass to bioproducts and bioenergy, as well as different approaches to assessing environmental impacts, which include case studies based on different technologies in use in a range of countries.