impacts and benefits of transnational projects (interreg

vorwegseiten_englisch 07.01.2009 16:49 Uhr Seite 1

Forschungen Issue 138

Impacts and Benefits of Transnational Projects

(INTERREG III B)

A project within the research programme "Demonstration Projects of Spatial Planning“ (MORO) conducted by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) and the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) MORO

Forschungen

In the series of journals Forschungen, the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS)and the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) publish selected results of the scientific research car-ried out in their departments in the fields of spatial planning, urban development, housing and building.

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Federal Ministry of Transport,

Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS)

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Federal Office for

Building and Regional Planning (BBR)

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53179 Bonn

Responsibility for the text

FORUM GmbH, Oldenburg (Contractor)

Dr. Michael Huebner (Direction)

Christina Stellfeldt-Koch

Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, Bonn (Client)

Brigitte Ahlke (Direction)

Dr. Fabian Dosch

Dr. Wilfried Görmar

Kerstin Greiling

Verena Hachmann

Jens Kumol

Nicole Schäfer

Editor

Nina Wilke BBR, Bonn

Translation

Steven Smith / Smith Translations, Hildesheim

Design and setting

Gerlinde Domininghaus / Formsache

Printing

Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, Bonn

Orders from

Beatrix Thul

E-Mail: [email protected]

Reference: Research Studies Issue 138

Reproduction and duplication The views expressed in this report by the author

All rights reserved are not necessarily identical with those of the publisher.

ISSN- 1435-4659 (Series)ISBN 978-3-87994-470-5

Forschungen Issue 138Bonn 2009

Structure

1 Summary 1

2 Introduction: motivation and task of the study 5

3 Concept and study structure 7

3.1 Evaluation and impact analyses 7

3.2 The method of examination: cooperative impact analysis 8

Selection 9

Case studies 10

Verification and application 11

4 Findings of the impact analysis 13

4.1 Impact of INTERREG 13

4.2 Results according to impact areas 14

Mobilisation of financial resources 14

Innovations in the field of brands, standards and procedures 18

Qualification and quality management 22

Development of regional transnational control competence 25

Summary of the results 31

4.3 Benefits of INTERREG: what reaches the regions? 33

Benefits of INTERREG for the cooperation areas and Europe 34

Value of INTERREG for the German federal states 35

Value of INTERREG for the regions 35

Value of INTERREG for the local authorities 35

Companies 35

5 Recommendations for action 37

5.1 Partnership 37

5.2 Programme level 38

5.3 Outlook 40

6 Literature 41

6.1 Thematic literature 41

6.2 Theoretical and process-analytical literature 41

Project Overview - Case Studies 44

Project List - Follow-Up Action 50

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Table of figures

Figure 1 Transnational collaboration 1

Figure 2 Selection stages for selecting the case studies 9

Figure 3 Impact areas and indicators 10

Figure 4 Examination structure of the cooperative impact analysis for INTERREG III B 12

Figure 5 Projects and impact areas examined 13

Figure 6 Flood Hazard Map of Schwedt (Oder) and its surroundings 27

Figure 7 ELLA; From: Cross-border fields of action of the ELLA strategy 28

Figure 1 Transnational collaboration

Reykjavik

Helsinki Oslo

Stockholm Tallin

Moskva Riga

København Dublin Vilnius

Minsk

Amsterdam London Berlin Warszawa

Bruxelles/Brussel Kyiv

Luxembourg Praha

Paris Bratislava KishinevWien Budapest

Bern Ljubljana Zagreb Bucuresti

BeogradSarajevo

Sofiya Madrid

Lisboa Rom Skopje Ankara Tirana

Athinai

BB

RB

onn

200

©7

Algier Rabat Tunis Nicosia

Valletta 500 km

Regions NUTS 2 and NUTS 32007 - 2013 (INTERREG IV B)

Geometric foundations: Alpine Space North Sea Region Baltic Sea Region Eurostat GISCO

Source: European Commission Central Europe North-West Europe

Layout_interreg_eng 19.12.2008 11:18 Uhr Seite 1

1 Summary

1 Summary Motivation and task

Despite the diversity of INTERREG projects and their wide distribution throughout the European member states, there are hardly any general insights concerning the long-term impacts or the lasting value of these projects. The essential reasons for this lie in the enormous thematic diversity of INTERREG, with the consequence that the follow-on effects of projects have been hardly possible to register within the scope of the ongoing evaluations. For this reason, the present study has set itself the objective of analysing in detail as wide a spectrum of INTERREG projects as possible in order to draw general conclusions about the sustainable effects of INTERREG.

The study is part of the research programme "Demonstration Projects of Spatial Planning". It is occasioned by the start of a new EU funding period that started in 2007. This period heralded a stronger focus on the part of EU policy as a whole – and with it the INTERREG programmes as well – on the goals of Lisbon and Gothenburg and, generally speaking, on a greater territorial integration within the EU.

Against this background, the research project has a purpose that is at once strategic and pragmatic: in analysing the impacts of INTERREG III B projects, it is not only a general research interest on the part of German national government that is in the forefront, but also the wish to design future INTERREG projects in such a way that their benefits can be improved in line with the reorientation of the EU funding policy and in line with a design interest on the part of German federal government in the various cooperation areas.

Study

In order to do justice to the diversity of almost 500 INTERREG projects and a large spectrum of effects, a level of result formulation has had to be found for this impact analysis that does justice to the different followon effects of INTERREG on the one hand and to the need for a generalised description on the other hand. In this conjunction, four fields of impact have emerged during the course of the research project:

• mobilisation of financial resources, • innovation in the fields of brands,

standards and procedures,

INTERREG III B - The programme

Within the framework of the "European Territorial Collaboration" goal, the European Union promotes transnational cooperation from funds of the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) with the objective of an integrated territorial development. The cooperation is effected on the basis of joint programmes of the respective partner states participating. The subject areas and spheres of action for the cooperation designated therein are implemented through transnational projects, which are subsidised by funds from the EFRE. As a result, the interstate cooperation on regional development tried and tested within the framework of INTERREG II C (1996-1999) and further developed through INTERREG III B (2000-2006) is being continued. The majority of the transnational programmes stick to the wellestablished designation "INTERREG B" for the transnational cooperation programmes. Germany is involved in five programme regions for transnational cooperation.

The transnational INTERREG programmes have contributed to an intensive networking and cooperation among the cities and regions in Europe. Within the scope of INTERREG III B, over 6,500 partners worked together in the five cooperation zones with German participation, including almost 1,000 German partners in around 500 projects.


2 Impacts and Benefits of Transnational Projects (INTERREG III B) Research Studies Issue 138

• quality management, and • the development of Regional Governance.

To conduct 20 detailed case studies and within the framework of a so-called "follow-on action", a total of 40 INTERREG projects were selected that represent the above-mentioned impact areas. In what follows, the study has not primarily geared itself towards the concrete project results, but rather towards the effects occurring predominantly after the project has ended. In s doing, the event chain Output-Result-Impact, which is familiar from evaluation research, has formed the basis.

Impacts of INTERREG

Organised according to the four impact areas, the results can be summarised as follows: INTERREG projects can contribute to the mobilisation of financial resources. Depending on the design of the project, investment-steering and investment-accelerating effects are created. Furthermore, INTERREG projects have a structure-forming function when they influence the design of promotion programmes and generate new promotion cases. Classic multiplier effects also occur in some projects: an investment in the tourism sector, for instance, frequently generates many small investments in its wake.

INTERREG projects very often develop innovations in the field of brands, standards and procedures within the framework of their objectives, which extend from purely technical to communicative or organisational processes. A special case among the project innovations is that of brands. Corresponding projects are distinguished by the fact that they require a support structure for the ownership of the brand and/or established procedures for further dealings with the product. Here, as also in the case of other innovations, the effect lies rather in the development of these structures than in the "invention" of something new per se.

As opposed to simple learning (see Ch. 4.2. Qualification and quality management), which takes place in every project, and the knowledge acquisition of organisations, INTERREG projects, when appropriately imbedded in a local or regional communication system, lead to developments that are similar to quality management after certifications. Although ad-hoc learning continues to take place, procedural routines are also introduced over and beyond that lead to a systematic quality development.

One of the central effects of INTERREG is the development of Regional Governance structures. Two different "methods" are possible here: the result structure is more of a technical network than a decision network. Such partnerships can come relatively quickly to common results but have only limited influence on later implementation. In contrast, the impact structure is mostly a large-scale partnership that embraces as many of those later involved in the implementation as possible. Through this networking of many decisive actors, however, the joint decision-making drags on to a very great extent. Most projects examined within the scope of this impact area endeavour to find a compromise comprising both approaches.

An important and central observation is the multidimensionality exhibited by many INTERREG projects in their impact. Frequently, the long-term follow-on effects of projects lie in several of the impact areas specified.

In order to highlight the observed impacts of INTERREG more clearly, a project ideal type can be constructed, which, however, does not exist in such a pure form in the actual project situations. The formulation of ideal types, therefore, merely serves illustrative purposes:

Ideally typical innovation projects are in the fewest of cases such projects that enable only one insight to be generated or one concept to be produced, but are almost always projects that build up a practical structure for the use of the project results themselves or transfer the procedure developed onto it.

Ideally typical investment projects are not necessarily such projects that generate the greatest streams of capital, but are above all projects that enable smaller-scale capital flows to be redirected permanently (through the creation of new products or promotion circumstances).

Ideally typical quality management projects are to be primarily found in city networks or in regional partnerships. The impacts of these projects are mostly regionally limited. The interaction density is generally (still) insufficient for a quality development across the entire cooperation region.

Ideally typical Regional Governance projects are projects that create important interstate bases of action and initiate their introduction. Their reference is mostly a common transborder territory and, from a thematic standpoint, a relatively complex functional interrelationship with just as complex networks.


3 Summary

Benefits of INTERREG

Transnational cooperation is required in the cooperation areas in order to be able to act in a decentralised and problem-related manner. Whether it concerns the longterm development of transport corridors, climate protection in sensitive natural regions, the protection of the population against environmental dangers or a systematic linking of economic potential: these tasks are protracted, complex, frequently associated with provisional failures, yet thoroughly imperative and hardly possible to carry out through international regulation. Transnational cooperation creates solutions from which the national states also profit.

The benefits of INTERREG accrue not only to the cooperation areas and the national states. The federal states can – insofar as this is politically desired – deploy INTERREG as an instrument of their own state development. In so doing, plans and conceptions in the area of structural politics and state development are enriched with European and therefore more wide-ranging aspects.

Moreover, INTERREG makes it possible for regional alliances and metropolitan regions to sharpen their joint profile in many subject areas. Regionality becomes easier to experience when it is experienced in the context of a European partnership. The transnational harmonisation within the scope of INTERREG is of advantage to the regional harmonisation in the carrying out of voluntary tasks.

The "transnational" also produces a better local government politics in many cases. This is especially expressed in the respective subject areas handled. Whether it relates to the revitalisation of quarters, an economic strategy or the establishment of new services for the population – through the multifaceted transnational cooperation, errors are avoided, and building and development undertakings are better tailored to their user group with the help of model projects and manifest increased follow-on effects.

Companies also profit from INTERREG. Wherever present or future transport routes are served, logistics providers profit through their improved planning horizons and through the creation of discussion links with responsible government bodies in their respective geographical area of activity. The value of small enterprises in tourism is the orientation around what are for them lucrative target groups, a development of quality

in their offers, and the chance to join supraregional and transnational marketing systems.

Recommendations for action

In the case of innovation projects: A concentration of procedural and process sequences is recommendable here. It should also be ensured that new developments, whether of a technical or organisational kind, find application beyond the circle of the partnership as well. In the case of tourism brand development, a homogenous structure of interests within the partnership is important since the brand will only endure if all partners commit themselves to the survival of brand and product. Just as the development of a permanent project management structure, this can be supported on the German side in strategically important cases.

In the case of investment projects: Followon effects in the form of investment turn out to be all the greater and more sustained, the more precisely the primary investment is planned. Since investments are generally eligible for promotion within the framework of the 2007-2013 funding period, care should be taken during the consultation and approval that the applicants explain what probability exists that the planned investments will trigger follow-on effects (perhaps of a different type). In the case of investment-paving projects, it should be laid out in a clear and transparent way how the beneficiaries of an investment are involved in the organisation of the result. A depiction of the possibilities of economical utilisation of project results and the monetary value that can be expected is helpful when politicians and other key actors are to be won over for a project.

In the case of quality management projects: The initiation of regional quality development through INTERREG functions particularly well when a development strategy that is desired (by national or state government) is Europeanised by the project or the INTERREG project can be used as a stimulator for a new regional development strategy.

In the case of Regional Governance projects: In the case of projects that are devoted to the development of regional control competencies, and in view of the possibility of choosing between a quick production of results and a longer-lasting implementation, it should first of all be clarified where the target priority lies: should the project rather gain



insights, the partnership should be developed in the form of a result structure. That is to say, it is rather composed of technical experts; if one wants to aim at a long-term commitment of the partners and plan concrete implementation steps in a binding manner, as many offices responsible for decision

making should be integrated in the partnership (impact structure). In the case of complicated technical problems, a twophase composition of the project should be assumed since the analysis of the structure of interests is frequently not affordable in the run-up to a project owing to the high costs.


5

2 Introduction: motivation and task of the study

The transnational collaboration within the framework of INTERREG has existed now for more than 10 years. Nevertheless, INTERREG B, as the programme, which has meanwhile become integrated in the so-called mainstream funding of the European structural policy, is still called, still shows no signs of age up to today. Since the first promotion period, organisational, strategic and communicative further developments, in particular, have ensured that the transnational projects can (and must) today operate significantly more professionally and in a more targeted manner than was the case several years ago.

Although a host of observations have been formulated and communicated in this connection, and despite the great diversity of INTERREG projects and their broad distribution throughout the member states, there are hardly any secured insights as to the longterm effects or the sustainable value of these projects. That is all the more regrettable since INTERREG projects still lead a shadowy existence in contrast to the investment aids and infrastructure funding within the framework of the EU Structural Funds and of the Joint Task of 'Improving the regional economic structure' (Gemeinschaftsaufgabe “Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur”) – and do so due to their comparatively low finance volume and their subject-based method of working, which is often unclear to non-specialists. And when subjects and contents of INTERREG projects excite public attention, the instrument INTERREG remains unknown in its capacity as initiator.

The fact that there are no extensive impact analyses relating to INTERREG B is therefore surprising at first since they could serve to cast the success of the projects in a brighter light. But if one looks around in the "INTERREG scene" a little closer, the obstacles to a comprehensive benefit analysis of this instrument become clear: INTERREG projects pursue a broad spectrum of mostly thematically specific objectives in very different large-scale transnational areas with very different partners. They carry out their work deploying different contingents of personnel and with different financial investment. And they realise their results in the context of differing wider political conditions and on the basis of stipulations specific to the cooperation area in each case.

Therefore, each INTERREG project is its own world in itself, and it is only too difficult to do justice to the achievements of hundreds of project teams with generalised observations. this is aggravated by the fact that many (interim) evaluations take place at a point in time when no statements can be made about effects that manifest themselves at a later date. A further reason for the lack of impact analyses lies in the task of evaluations: with relation to all EU interventions, and therefore to INTERREG III B as well, the vast majority of the evaluations must make statements about the target achievement of a project and/or the associated programme. Since the evaluations take place in accompaniment to the programme, or must perhaps already make their statements when the programme ends, the respective researcher hardly has a chance to make a long-term assessment of benefits and impacts. Nevertheless, this method of approach is plausible: the respective programme management would like to receive findings as early as possible in order to perform any necessary course corrections1. Moreover, for budget systems reasons, even expost evaluations have to take place at such an early date after completion of the activities that it is frequently only the so-called outputs that can be recorded, and not the project results, let alone the project's impacts. Perhaps the greatest deficiency of all evaluations in this regard is that they generally have to lay a more or less strongly formalised observation raster over a large number of projects, and it is therefore almost consistently only quantitative analyses that come into question.

In the process, all those project impacts not intended at the project outset, which occur in the case of many projects, necessarily are excluded from the observation. These developments mostly take place in the domain of procedural-technical processes and an improved coordination of the respective responsible offices and agencies. Projects are therefore unintentionally become "heuristic networks", and this special value of INTERREG cannot be measured by the "classic" evaluation because of its orientation towards the target-output relation of the projects or programmes. As the research project described here has shown, important and

(1) See here the accompanying evaluations carried out in all INTERREG IIIB cooperation areas, with the mid-term evaluation of the Baltic Sea Region: Ramboll Management 2005 singled out to represent them all



central aspects within the value spectrum of INTERREG thus wander outside the range of observation.

For this and other reasons, the research project has been obliged to keep its method of approach as open as possible so as to be able to analyse such corresponding effects as well. On the other hand, it was necessary not to make any exclusively unique-case observations for the sake of the usability of the results; rather, an analysis level had to be selected that produces general usable statements in the following context.

The study is part of the research programme "Demonstration Projects of Spatial Planning". It is occasioned by the start of a new EU funding period that started in 2007. This period heralded a stronger focus on the part

of EU policy as a whole – and with it the INTERREG programmes as well – on the goals of Lisbon and Gothenburg and, generally speaking, on a greater territorial integration within the EU.

Against this background, the research project has a purpose that is at once strategic and pragmatic: in analysing the impacts of INTERREG III B projects, it is not only a general research interest on the part of German national government that is in the forefront, but also the wish to design future INTERREG projects in such a way that their benefits can be improved in line with the reorientation of the EU funding policy and in line with a design interest on the part of German federal government in the various cooperation areas.


7

3 Concept and study structure 3.1 Evaluation and impact

analyses

The first conceptual spadework for the study began towards the end of 2006. Within the scope of this initial approximation towards the universal set of the INTERREG projects, the databases of the INTERREG secretariats of the five cooperation areas with German involvement revealed an existing number of 496 projects altogether (beginning of 2007). In view of this large number, the task of the study consisted in determining the result horizon of the research project. To this end, there were different possibilities or methods of approach:

In principle, the possibility existed of gauging project-specific impacts against the benchmark of project or programme stipulations. In view of the large diversity of project objectives, the observation of singular project aims and statements derived from it about the specific impacts of individual projects would have led to an equally large diversity of results. The ability to transfer results, their portability so to speak, would have proved difficult. A further possibility of analysis would have consisted in drawing on programmatic objectives of the cooperation zones as a measuring rod (or search focus) for project impacts and to structure the impact analysis according to cooperation areas. In such a procedure, however, the expert appraisers would have to have weighted their findings against the respective initial conditions of a cooperation area since, depending on the development status of the transnational cooperation, the impacts of thematically similar projects cannot be judged in the same way. What represents a major procedural innovation in one cooperation area might possibly achieve no effects anymore in another cooperation area. In addition, the five INTERREG programmes addressed here relocate in their objectives to general process goals such as the development of the knowledge society, a stronger degree of networking, an improved risk management or the cooperation between urban and rural areas. The political objective of the transnational regional development sets highly generalised process targets because they are intended to have an initiatory and not a restrictive effect. The actors and project partners are to be deliberately left a freedom to design, which has, incidentally, proved to be

a major strength of INTERREG. Nevertheless, these objectives are not well suited as a concrete benchmark for an impact analysis: they merely give an indication of the direction in which should look for the benefits of INTERREG, yet do not grasp the desired impacts conceptually.

Consequently, it was first necessary to clarify the question: what can a generally describable impact of INTERREG be at all? To answer this question, it was possible to fall back on work that has already been done: firstly, the BBR operates a database containing all the INTERREG projects that were evaluated according to different criteria in 2005.2 These evaluations provided no comprehensive analysis, but they give, inter alia, indications of actor structures and spatial coordinates of networking. Moreover, INTERREG specialists from the BBR and other institutions gathered and discussed initial impressions from the INTERREG activities in a volume that also appeared in 2005.3 In particular, the contribution from Kurnol about strategic projects, from Nagel and Ernst about INTERREG and investments and from Böhme about learning processes in transnational projects provide an informative basis for the search for an appropriate analysis level. In addition, a study commissioned by the BBR was completed in 2007 that shows on the basis of concrete project results which impacts can emanate from INTERREG projects at all and in what way results evolve in the direction of impacts.4 This study has been very helpful in the formulation of Indicators for the first phases of the impact analysis.

It was shown as the result of the preliminary considerations that the analysis of the impacts of INTERREG III B has to relate in general to the sustainable change of actor and decision structures. Here are a few examples on this point:

A project develops a new procedure for the transnational coordination of planning approaches. The value of this action must now lie in the fact that this procedure is also actually applied. However, that requires a change in the decision structures of the national partners and a new form of exchange across the borders.

In another, also typical INTERREG project, it becomes possible through the linking up of several finance sources to set up an urban or

(2) Cf. Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (Ed.) 2005 (a).

(3) Cf. Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (Ed.) 2005 (b)

(4) Cf. Planungsgruppe agl 2007



regional infrastructure. The binding of financial resources is not an end in itself, however, but at best an indicator of the valuation of an investment by other investors or financial backers. Since it is in most cases "systematic investors" who are involved, who operate exclusively via certain procedures, the impact of the corresponding project can be seen less in the creation of the infrastructure and more in the change of conduct of the other funding agencies.

In a third example, actors are building a transnational network to promote the economic and transport development in a region. Here too, the impact of the project cannot only lie in the provision of planning, but above all in the constitution of a transnational decisionmaking structure, which ensures the implementation of the corresponding plans.

Let this short reflection on the possible benefits of projects be sufficient at this point. The impact analysis has been designed in such a way as to allow as many variations of process changes to be observed as possible.

The detailed specification of the analysis level also makes it clear the impacts examined here should not be confused with the project results. The results chain Output, Result and Impact used in evaluation research is best suited to elucidate this distinction. For purposes of explanation, here is an example:

• Output: product of an organisation or of a project, e.g. several information events carried out on the subject of resourcesaving planning

• Result: result of a project activity, e.g. all the cities or regions involved are informed about the possibilities of resource-saving planning and implement these methods.

• Impact: project impact: within the cities and regions involved and over and beyond them, a reduction in the consumption of resources occurs through resource-saving planning.

Whereas the output is one of the measurable results and is therefore scrutinised by "classic" evaluation research, project results are more attributable to the products, and can mostly only be assessed from a technical perspective due to their respective extremely individual character. The impacts, on the other hand, are those changes that a product (prospectively) generates, and they are therefore the central focus of the analysis procedure selected here.

3.2 The method of examination: cooperative impact analysis

Every kind of social research is dependent on the cooperation of people. Without the readiness to answer questions and make data available, there would be no instructive and useable findings from the analysis of political processes and programmes. In the present impact analysis, not only was information to be gained about the emergence of impacts, but a joint (critical) assessment of these results has had to be elaborated at a subsequent stage. Over and beyond a basic willingness on the part of the interviewees to cooperate, the analysis was therefore dependent to a very special degree on the collaboration of specialists, project participants and expert observers. This group of people also included employees at the BBR, who thus played the double role of being both clients (commissioning the study) and INTERREG experts.

For this reason, the term cooperative impact analysis was chosen for the research project and, in line with this orientation, the essential elements of the examination procedure consist in a reflection on the results obtained by questioning participants and specialists. A range of projects were to stand in the centre of the surveys that had emerged as representative or typical for a certain process change as the result of prior examination steps. In order to gain an overview of all INTERREG III B projects and to arrive at a meaningful sample to investigate, the case studies as such were preceded by a multistage selection procedure, the results of which consisted in nominating 20 "impacttypical" projects. The individual elements of the procedure are described in what follows:

Selection As already mentioned, the expert appraisers have identified 496 INTERREG IIIB projects in January 2007 in the five cooperation areas with German involvement. In order arrive at suitable case studies, a targeted selection was made among the projects on the basis of previously defined criteria. This procedure replaced an initially planned random sample, whose hit rate would have turned out to be much lower as regards impact-typical or even instructive projects.

The selection procedure consisted of so-called adverse selection during the first two selection stages. The population (universal set) was, so to speak, "sieved" or filtered, that is to say those

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9 Concept and study structure

projects were weeded out whose possible effects (on the basis of an increasing information depth with each selection stage) would probably have been difficult to relate to, or which appeared unsuitable for further study for other reasons. In the third stage, a positive selection was made among the remaining projects according to specific criteria. It remains to be noted that, through the repeated observation of a very large number of INTERREG projects during the course of the analysis, the selection process led to an increasingly precise assessment on the part of the processors about the entire value and impact picture of INTERREG III B. These insights then served to inform the following processing stages on eachoccasion.

In the following boxes, the three selection stages are depicted with their corresponding modalities. It should be added that after the complete analysis of the case studies had been completed, a follow-up action or review of 20 further projects was then carried out on the basis of the then-existing state of knowledge. These projects were fished out from the sample of the third selection stage and can play their part in illustrating project impacts despite the lower depth of examination (generally only desktop analysis and, where possible, an interview).

(5) In the Baltic Sea Region, the num-ber of registered project partners was frequently very high because associated actors were also listed as project partners.

Figure 2 Selection stages for selecting the case studies

1st selection stage

Basis: All the projects found in the databases of the INTERREG secretariats on 12.1.2007, N=496

Information basis: Brief accounts of the projects within the scope of the websites of the secretariats, in very limited number of exceptional cases further enquiries or additional research.

Projects eliminated: 1. Projects with considerably more than 10 partners (required depth of cooperation generally not achievable). Exceptions are possible, the criterion is not applied in the Baltic Sea Region.5

2. Projects whose most important end product consisted in a study, a handbook, a manual, or the like.

3. Projects of a pure "awareness building" character (effect largely unclear, small need for research)

4. Projects that limit themselves de facto to the pure exchange of information. 5. Projects with task complexes irrelevant for later funding periods and/or German

involvement strategies (projects with impacts that are difficult to transfer or extrapolate)

2nd selection stage

Basis: Result of selection 1, N=149

Information basis: Websites of the secretariats, further materials from the secretariats, project websites, further enquiries to the secretariats

Ausscheidende Projekte: • Projects that would have been excluded in stage 1, but that did not occur due to a slender information basis at that time.

• Projects whose impacts (prospectively) could not yet be estimated due to on-going work.

• Projects whose impacts could hardly be estimated for research-technical reasons (e.g. technical peculiarities, complex task definition).

3rd selection stage

Basis: Result of selection 2: N=75 Information basis: Websites of the secretariats and material from them, project websites,

further enquiries to secretariats, further enquiries to experts



Choice of the case studies In order to make the selection of projects for the 20 case studies easier, a typification or categorisation of the projects was carried out during a first step according to their prospective areas of impact. This took place on the basis of the then-existing state of knowledge and exclusively served to facilitate the selection of the case studies. The sample for examination could therefore be collated according to the presumed impacts.

1. Follow-up investments, e.g.

• P. generates investments that are financed through other programmes or the sponsor's own capital

2. Innovations, e.g.

• P. leads to the use of brands and standards developed in the project • P. leads to the use of inventions, applications and methods outside of the project

3. Qualifications, e.g.

• P. leads to the further development of skills and proficiencies

4. Projects with strategically important control effects Regional Governance projects or strategic projects), e.g.

• P. impacts political decisions that are of significance to the respective cooperation area

• P. generates new capabilities for regional control in a corridor, in a subregion or in the entire cooperation area

After all the 75 projects that passed through selection 3 had been judged according to their prospective impact area, a positive selection of 20 projects took place for the purpose of conducting the case studies. In the process, care was taken to obtain as broad a spread as possible of the case studies across the four impact areas. In the choice of projects to be examined, the question was also looked at whether INTERREG projects already exhibiting outstanding effects at this point in time, such as e.g. COINCO or Shared Space6, should be automatically included in the examination, so to speak automatically. The decision was ultimately made in favour of the systematic research method so as to primarily examine projects whose impacts are not accessible a priori and which therefore serve to represent the majority of all projects.

A list of the case studies can be found in the Appendix of this report.

Figure 3 Impact areas and indicators

(6) "Corridor of Innovation and Co-operation" is a cooperation project between German, Danish and Swedish regions or cities, which has been recently sealed by a joint charter. "Shared Space" is a pilot project tested within the scope of INTERREG to dispense with all types of traffic separation on appropriate spaces. This approach has earned a great deal of public attention and is currently being discussed in many places.

"Follow-up action" After evaluating the case studies, the appraisers selected a further 20 projects from the result sample of the third selection for the purpose of a follow-up action. This working step was inserted into the course of the study spontaneously and aimed to effect a further consolidation of the results obtained up to that date. Since only very limited work capacities were available for the followup action, project impacts could only be recorded in a cursory form. The results of the follow-up action have been integrated into the respective remarks and reference is made to them where this appears meaningful.

A list of the projects treated within the scope of the follow-up action can be found in the Appendix of this report.

Case studies The analysis of the case studies that followed on from the selection together with the follow-up action represents the actual impact analysis. In 20 selected projects, processes, results and analyses were examined through an analysis of the information and the carrying out of, in general, six telephone interviews. In selecting the interview partners, the concrete project partnership and the so-called periphery of the projects were taken into equal account. The periphery denotes the broader event space of the projects. The questioning of persons outside of the project partnership and within the impact area has aimed not only to contribute to a more precise localisation of impacts, but also to illuminate their emergence conditions more closely (see the boxes for details of the follow-up action).

The search for dialogue partners from the ranks of the project partners was carried out along the project organisation structure: along with the respective lead partner, the so-called work-package leaders or regional coordinators were also accessed. If such persons did not exist, the dialogue partners were selected from the most important project partners in terms of work input and co-financing level. This has consistently proved to be a sensible method.

For the periphery, the study has concentrated in many cases on the German beneficiaries of the project results. This had conceptual and pragmatic grounds: experience has shown that project impacts (or prospective impacts as well) can turn out differently in the various countries involved. That has


11 Concept and study structure

primarily to do with the respective initial situation that prevailed at the start: if, for example, there has been little relevant infrastructure within a region up to now (e.g. for cycle tourists, CO2), the accumulated needs (backlog demand) generate a vigorous chain of effects in the investment domain. In those regions where there is merely need for development, such project impacts are felt to a weaker extent.

Similar observations can be made in other thematic areas: the collaboration between metropolises and their interacting region is given strong impetus through INTERREG if only a weak context of regional cooperation already exists. In Germany, on the other hand, the regional planning discourse has long concerned itself with a functional distribution of tasks in urban agglomerations. The general process effects are accordingly different in each case.

Moreover, the effects and impacts can also depend on the arrangements of the respective national institutions. Who benefits in what way from something is frequently a consequence of the general political guidelines and the institutional arrangements.

The research to find periphery partners was conducted systematically: to start with, an estimate was made on the basis of available information which actors might be able to profit from the results of a project. Contact was then taken up with these actors. If this approach did not prove successful, peripheral project partners (partners whose active contribution to a project is small) were contacted and interviewed. A third and last approach consisted in asking the active project partners for peripheral discussion

partners. In end effect, this led in a small number of cases to scientists or academics being questioned instead of the beneficiaries of the project results; although these interviewees had no close interaction with the project, they were able to assess it effectively from a technical and specialist standpoint

Verification and application This stage of the examination served to obtain feedback once again about the interview and analysis findings from the case studies from the project partners and INTERREG experts from programmatically involved offices at the national and federal state levels. A workshop was carried out for each of the INTERREG impact areas identified (see Ch. 4). At these events, discussions were conducted about the evaluation of results as well as about what factors favour or can accelerate the emergence of project impacts.

A further workshop (Workshop of Designers) with the participation of programmatically shaping actors from the German federal states, the Contact Points, the INTERREG secretariats and national government bodies (BMVBS, BBR) concluded the study with an evaluation of possible courses of action to enhance the value of transnational regional collaboration within the framework of the new funding period.

Graphic 4 once again illustrates the entire examination structure with each single working step. It remains to be mentioned that the empirical part of the research project extended over a period of 16 months. The first selection stage started in the spring of 2007 and the concluding Workshop of Designers was staged in June 2008.



Figure 4 Examination Structure of the Cooperative Impact Analysis for INTERREG III B

Review of the research field and concrete • Evaluation of studies, material and information elaboration of the research subject • Definition of the research questions

Closing presentation • Communication of the results

Final report and brochure • Publication of the results

• Development of a multi-stage selection procedure to choose case studies from

Conception of the selection procedure 496 projects • Development of a search matrix for the

final selection

• Three-stage selection procedure: 1. Selection according to general criteria

Selection of appropriate projects 2. Selection according to specific criteria 3. Selection according to impact dimensions

• Result of the selection: 20 appropriate projects • Execution of the case studies (3 interviews

Case studies n= 20 (approx.) with project partners and 3 with the "periphery" in each case)

• Evaluation of the case studies

• Result from Step 4 = 4 areas of impact • Staging of one workshop per impact area

with project partners and experts Workshops on the areas of impact • Evaluation of the workshops • Elaboration of central impact analysis

statements

• Conference of the programmatically shaping players from federal and state government

Conference of the "shapers" with the objective of deriving conclusions from the findings and implementing them


Figure 5 Projects and impact areas examined

Development of

Regional Governance

Regional

Quality Management

Mobilisation of

Financial Ressources

String

Harbasins

Power

ClimchAlp

Oderregio

Ella

Alpcity

WIHCC

AlpFrail

NMC

AB Landbridge

NSBE

CO2

BEEN

EUROB

Artery

MA+

Monitraf

Via Alpina

Safety at Sea

Innovation

13

4 Findings of the impact analysis

4.1 Impact of INTERREG Apart from the threat of flooding that has already been fended of, the corridors that have been conceived, the revitalised urban centres, the business links that have been cultivated and the infrastructure that has been created, transnational relationships emerge that are consolidated in a way that is at once visible and silent. They are visible because the world is always somewhat different "afterwards" for those concerned than it was at the start of the project. And the repercussions are silent because everyone immediately becomes accustomed to the emergence of a new and better state of affairs and sees it as a matter of course. This is not a specific INTERREG phenomenon but the omnipresent price to be paid for our fastmoving times.

Against this backdrop, the in-depth questioning of various sources on the same set of issues has proved to be particularly effective since the task in hand initially also consisted in reconstructing the "before" situation with the respondents so as to appreciate the "after" situation accordingly. During this process, none of those surveyed indulged in any embellishment, whitewashing or glossing over of the facts as regards the results of the projects. First of all, half of them had no reason to do so since they did not belong to the project partnership but to the periphery of a particular measure. But lead partners and centrally involved players have also supported the selected cooperative impact analysis approach to a very great extent through (self-) critical reflection about what was achieved and the results that ensued.

The preliminary finding is therefore: INTERREG III B generates changes in the decision structures of cities, regions and entire cooperation areas that have a different profile geographically and spatially and in terms of their thematic and organisational direction. The areas of impact already mentioned have proved to be central here. During the course of the concrete analysis, however, they were conceptually adjusted to the increasingly intensive insight into the corresponding mechanisms.

The case studies selected for detailed analysis have almost consistently proved to be particularly illustrative for the analysis and the exemplary documentation of the impacts. It has also become clear in the process that

hardly any of the projects manifests a singledimension impact structure. There are indeed projects for which certain effects are typical, but they also exhibit other effects and therefore a broader spectrum of usefulness. Tourism projects, for example, which have attained a brand development, almost necessarily generate a larger number of (smaller) investments in their wake. On the other hand, revitalisation projects with high investment sums, for example, can engender a new quality in the local or regional political process. To present an initial insight into the "multitalent" INTERREG, Figure 5 shows all the projects analysed as case studies in a fictive impact space, the corners of which document the individual and specific spheres of impact. Projects that lie more towards the corners of the graphic have a denser impact spectrum, whereas the projects depicted in the centre exhibit all types of impact. The corresponding is true at the



edges of the surface. The figure thus illustrates where the strongest impact of a project lies proportionally, but does not show the absolute intensity of an impact.

In the following sections the reworked conception of the respective impact area will first be described once more. The respective findings will be explained with the aid of several project examples. In the process, the choice of the examples is not necessarily restricted to the strongest impact components evident from the graphic, but also takes (weaker) effects of a different impact spectrum into account insofar as they can serve as an illustration. That is also the reason why several projects appear again in the collection of examples whereas others are completely absent or only mentioned once. Section 4.3 is then concerned with the value and benefit of INTERREG inferred from the effects.

4.2 Results according to impact areas

Mobilisation of financial resources

During the course of the study, it has become evident that one does not do full justice to the possible impact spectrum of INTERREG with the search for investments in the strict sense. A mobilisation of financial resources becomes apparent most clearly in the form of a building measure or some other "productive investment". Consequently, it is predominantly construction measures and infrastructure acquisitions that are in the forefront of the considerations when appraising the project effects. However, one would not

do justice to the "instrument" INTERREG were one not to include a wider circle of consequential financial effects in the analysis: in this sense it is not just productive investments in the spirit of the ERDF regulation that contribute to the long-term success of a project. Essentially speaking, this is any kind of cash flow that occurs beyond the cofinancing of INTERREG funds and subsequent to project results. Excluded from consideration are financial resources that flow into business equipment and consumables and therefore develop no further leverage effect in terms of the project impact.

"Mobilisation of financial resources" was selected as the heading for this area of impact. One reason for this – not so pleasing – paraphrasing of this impact area is the emphasis on dynamics. It is not just the one-off payment, the investment or the sum of many one-off subsidies that effect a sustained change in the process of events. Above all, it is also the transformation in the relevant decision-making structures that finds expression in such altered "payment customs" of public and other bodies.

Before looking at the examples, it should be noted once again that budgeted capital flows within the project duration are not among the effects of the project, but represent a part of the output within the framework of the process chain "output-result-impact". That does not mean that a mobilisation of capital has to occur only after the project has ended. Part of the examples shows that results achieved during the course of the project can already lead to a sustained impact before the end of the project term.

North Sea Bioenergy (NSBE): construction of biomass heating plants

Apart from two demonstration plants funded through the project, further plants have already been created or are in planning in Holland and in Scotland with private financing. Other service enterprises and industrial companies are profiting from this investment. The operation of the plants also opens up new possibilities of revenue for farmers.

An international virtual trading centre for biomass and emissions trading, which is still to be set up within the project framework, is likely to generate further effects. The biomass marketplace is to be run on a permanent basis with own funding from individual project partners (e.g. the Lower Saxony Network for Renewable Resources).



Water in Historic City Centers WIHCC: Investment control and quality improvements in the overall concept

The partners in the WIHHC project are concerned with the revitalisation of historic city centres in conjunction with watercourses. In Breda (NL) the INTERREG project consisted in budget terms of a three-percent funding share of the entire revitalisation totalling EUR 27.5 million. Despite this relatively small funding share, the INTERREG contribution should not be estimated as small. Here, as in other projects as well, INTERREG represents something like the "keystone of the dome". It is only through its introduction that the bearing strength is reached at all.

Moreover, the project has led to an optimisation of the entire deployment of resources within the partner regions: many of the investments made through the project represent significant additions to the overall activities and help achieve an intelligent linking with other resources. In Chester, for example, more than 10 financing instruments were deployed for the urban revitalisation project.

Photo: Wessel Keizer WIHCC: New Market in Breda

AlpFRail: accelerated establishment of new train connections

Against the background of constantly rising freight traffic, different products in freight transport were conceived within the AlpFrail project, including, for example, the Adriazug, TrailerTrain, TrainManu and the direct Ulm - Milan link (Donillo: Donau-IllerLombardei-Shuttle), which have already been realised in part. For instance, the direct link between Ulm and Milan started operation with the 2007 timetable change. The route is operated by a European logistics service provider based in Basel together with an Italian partner.

The installation of the train connections has in part triggered further investments or plans that will result in investments. For instance, it will be necessary to initiate accompanying measures so as to be able to operate the direct Ulm-Milan link economically. For this reason, the construction of a south entrance and exit in the Ulm/Dornstadt container station and an electrification of the Südbahn route from Ulm to Friedrichshafen are envisaged. Agreements on the financing of pre-planning costs totalling EUR 1.4 million were reached at the end of 2007.

Photo: LKZ Prien GmbHAlpFRail: Munich-Riem transhipment terminal



VIA ALPINA/VIADVENTURE: tourist infrastructure and tourism marketing

The realisation of the transnational hiking trail has triggered private investments in several regions, particularly in the domain of expanding and instigating accommodation and restaurant offers at the local level (e.g. in Switzerland). Moreover, various tourism organisations and travel operators in France, Germany and Austria have adopted the Via Alpina into their programme (e.g. Swiss Trails GmbH, Chiemgau Tourismus e.V). Numerous hiking and tour guides have meanwhile appeared in the bookshops.

Marketing activities for the product are very successful in Switzerland: whereas around 5,000 Swiss francs could be earned during the first year through the sale of all-inclusive offers, this figure reached 60,000 francs in the second year and more than 100,000 francs in 2007. This success is particularly attributable to the fact that an especially suitable institution, the Interessengemeinschaft HumanPoweredMobility (HPM), was chosen by the Swiss partners to carry out this task. HPM organises the marketing for all non-motorised tourist activities (cycling, skating etc.) in Switzerland, which meant that no new marketing structure had to be built up. VIA ALPINA: The Pühringer hut

In Slovenia, hiking tourism was not established as a subject area in its own right. Public institutions have now designated this segment as a development priority and will be creating an infrastructure of the same kind as that created for the French Alps with the society Grande Traversée des Alpes (GTA).

Photo: Ch. Schwann

Alpcity: promotion programmes for urban development

Although the project has not been able to generate public and private investment in a causal manner, it has demonstrably helped produce increased capital deployment in several partner regions. In the Lombardy region, for instance, a promotion programme for integrated urban development has been implemented with the goal of furthering the retail trade and reviving town centres, which is equipped with EUR 45 million and is funded from national and regional resources.

Although private investments cannot be monocausally attributed to the INTERREG project, they are an effect of the abovementioned promotion programme in the region of Lombardia: towns and communities can make applications with their development projects and have to show that private funds also flow into the financing; altogether, over 500 competition applications have been received, and just under 70 are being furthered.

Metropolitan Areas MA+: investment preparation for key projects in regional development

The primary protagonists engaged in the project Metropolitan Areas MA and MA+ in Norway, Sweden and Germany have implemented the project in various ways for the polycentric development of their regions. In the wake of the planning and conceptional work in the regions, various possibilities of mobilising capital have been utilised.

The project revealed very strong financial repercussions in the Berlin-Brandenburg region: for example, it was possible on the basis of the project work to achieve the through-connection of the Regional Express train from Neuruppin to the centre of Berlin. On the basis of a feasibility study drawn up within the project, the federal state of Brandenburg could be won over as "orderer" for the corresponding travel service. Neuruppin itself is arranging for an expansion of the stop station, the setting up of bus lanes and the provision of PR sites, and is investing its own funds for the purpose.

A further subproject involves the drawing up of a master plan for an industrial area on the Finow Canal from the 1st stage of industrialisation. The preliminary work in the project has significantly contributed to the fact that the Brandenburg state government is investing EUR 10 million of funding for a subproject.

As a further pilot project in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district of Berlin, the commercial site management was drawn up for an area that represents a special challenge on account of the different structures of interest and ownership involved. A Public-Private Partnership arose from these activities the development of which is now being promoted from the federal Stadtumbau West (Urban Redevelopment West) programme.



Artery: multiplier effects and a doubling of the project budget

The Artery project budget for the development of landscapes in connection with water and watercourses amounted to a totalof EUR 13.1 million. The protagonists estimate that a further EUR 13 million of capital was able to be mobilised in conjunctionwith the pilot projects in Great Britain, Holland and Germany.

Furthermore, the upgrading of an area in the Mersey Bain in Northeast England, for example, has contributed within the framework of a Public-Private Partnership to the acquisition of a whole series of further state, municipal and private funds, with whichthe projects could be complemented and stocked up. Without Artery, the erection of the Liverpool Sailing Club, for example,would not have been possible in its current form.

In the German project region Unterer Neckar, the Heidelberg public utility companies (Stadtwerke) have made the sum of EUR100,000 available for the development of an aquatic playground. Over and beyond such directly observable capital movements,follow-on effects of the project occur in many cases through the closing of gaps in a fragmented infrastructure and other effects:the construction of a small ferry for cyclists and pedestrians in the Ruhrtal has meanwhile led to a rise in the number of dayvisitors in Witten to around 70,000 persons a year. This stream of visitors results in a range of smaller private activities, whichgenerate additional value-added here.

Examples from the follow-up activity

The mobilisation of financial resources as a consequential effect could also be ascertained in some of the projects of the followup action. Owing to what were in part highly complex chains of effect, it was not always possible to check results within the pre-given framework. The example of RegioMarket may serve as an instructive example for complex supplementary effects:

The aim of the project was to optimise the regional marketing overall in the partner regions and in the Alpine region. The focus was on the three areas renewable energies, regional foods and the linking of regional products and services with tourist offers. Several new regional brands were prepared in the process and also implemented, in particular in those countries where regional marketing has not been a concern up to now. The project know-how and the exchange of knowledge have had an accelerating effect on the processes of brand development and implementation. In this connection, the project served the preparation of investment for the introduction of new products (e.g. tinned food from Unser Land).

Another example is the project SAND: this examined how flood protection could be improved through the use of former mineral and sand excavation sites along rivers. In the case of a French project (Choisy-au-Bac), there was a positive image effect through the transnational character of the project, which in turn led to the fact that additional national resources have flowed into the project. The time pressure in calling for funds created by INTERREG has furthered the speed of national and regional investment decisions.

Artery: Playing alongside the federal waterway Photo: Nachbarschaftsverband Heidelberg-Mannheim



As the examples show, the analysis of consequential financial effects of INTERREG projects reveals an astounding diversity of effects. It is, however, not the projects that aim at major constructional changes from the outset that also achieve the most significant consequential effects. Urban development projects, for example, set great sums of money in motion, but only owe their leverage effect to a smaller degree to the involvement of an INTERREG project. In such cases (e.g. WIHHC), the search for new capital flows conceals the investment control, which is also able to make a smaller financing contribution. Investments are no end in themselves, but an indicator of upcoming follow-on effects. These turn out to be all the larger and more sustainable the more precisely the primary investment is planned. In investment projects, INTERREG thus has an investmentsteering effect in the sense of increasing the overall value.

Over and beyond the lasting change in the decision-making behaviour of the funding protagonists mentioned previously, the sustainability of a successful capital deployment is of course also provided by the fact that, for example, new infrastructures or new promotion cases are actually utilised and thus trigger a further chain of effect.

Investments that can be monocausally attributed to an INTERREG project occur by nature as a follow-up to projects that explicitly serve the purpose of investment preparation (e.g. AlpFRail). Here, one can at least speak of the temporal occurrence of an investment as a direct consequential effect of the INTERREG project, since the capital deployment would not have occurred at all or much later without the transnational activities. In these cases, INTERREG acts as an investment accelerator.

INTERREG projects attain a completely new quality when they manage to trigger new promotion cases in specific technical programmes and to integrate their outflow of funds in a new context (e.g. AlpCity). This results in a structure-forming effect of INTERREG projects, which produce a great deal of leverage and thus develop a broad-based geographical impact.

It is ultimately tourism projects that frequently actuate a host of smaller-sized budgets in the wake of the activities of tourism

providers (e.g. ViaAlpina). This represents a classic multiplier effect through the realisation of further (smaller-scale) flows of financing.

The diversity of the effects shows that INTERREG projects do not represent investment projects in the essential sense of the term. They are mostly not monocausal originators of any increase in economic performance within the project regions. However, their contribution to such effects should not be underestimated. The mobilisation of the flow of financing is never an end in itself, but in the best case part of an economic chain reaction that leads to increased wealth creation and ultimately to greater prosperity. Every qualitative enrichment of an investment activity is of great value in the medium and long term.

Innovations in the field of brands, standards and procedures

INTERREG projects mostly tread new ground with their activities. The overwhelming majority of them produce no technical inventions (such as e.g. the Projekt Safety@Sea). But in many cases they are dependent on developing new transnational bases for action and new procedures that perhaps already belong to the well-worn routines at the national level. Innovations in the INTERREG domain are therefore primarily process innovations, which serve to pave the way for future activities in the respective area and enable the subsequent users to enhance their productivity. To this extent, the new standards and procedures identified here are very similar in their impact: they lead to an increase in productivity and enable an improvement in the quality of results with an unchanged level of deployed resources.

However, innovations of this type and of other kinds are only of value or only show an impact when they are also applied by other players after they have been made available. After all, a lot can be developed, but if the innovation is not in demand, it remains without an impact. For this reason, in the analysis of the respective effects, only the certain (or at least most plausible) deployment of the innovations outside the direct project network is spoken of as an effect.



European Route of Brick Gothic EUROB: an umbrella brand for the preservation of historic monuments and tourism

With the EUROB project, a network has been built up that releases synergies between cultural tourism and the preservation of historic buildings and monuments. The conservation of historic structures in the cities and communities influenced by Brick Gothic and the promotion of their attractiveness for tourists is being realised through a permanently institutionalised collaboration among the partners in the tourism domain. A non-profit society according to German law is the proprietor of the umbrella brand EUROB and oversees the corporate design and the quality criteria for the offers available. With the foundation of this association, the partnership has achieved a degree of commitment that secures the new standards introduced over the long term with the EUROB brand.

BEEN: Instruments and operational standards for the energy-efficient refurbishment of prefabricated multi-storey building stock

The energy-efficient refurbishment of prefabricated multistorey building stock (high-rise apartment blocks withfunctional architecture) is a financial and operational problem. The existence of large communities of owners created by the overhasty privatisation of the non-renovated building stock calls for special legal and procedural approaches for the renovation in many Central and Eastern European countries. The BEEN project has created the preconditions to improve the general legal framework and to exploit promotion instruments in a more effective way for approaching the problem of refurbishing the prefabricated building stock in terms of energy efficiency. For instance, target statements motivated through BEEN have found their way into some of the national Structural Fund programmes, and the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau KfW and the Estonian state bank are addressing the development of the KfW Model (revolving funding instruments) in Estonia. The projecthandbook has already been translated into Chinese: there is also a great stock of prefabricated high-rise buildings in China that are in need of refurbishment.

EUROB: Market square in Greifswald

Photo: Deutscher Verband für Wohnungswesen, Städtebau und Raumordnung e.V.

BEEN: Concrete tower block in Estonia before and after the renovation

Photos: Initiative Wohnungswirtschaft Osteuropa (IWO) e.V.

Via Alpina/Viadventure: the Via Alpina brand

Within the scope of the project collaboration, the Via Alpina brand was developed and its content was introduced to marketing activities through the elaboration of a quality handbook to develop hiking tourism and through a database covering all stages of the Via Alpina. A joint reservation system is currently being built up.

After the end of the project in March 2008, an organisational structure to continue the Via Alpina was created, financed by all eight partner countries. In the medium term, the longdistance hiking trail is to be transferred into private hands. The association Grande Traversée des Alpes (GTA) is the proprietor of the Via Alpina brand and will conclude brand utilisation contracts with all market partners.

Via Alpina: Panorama route above Vent and meadow slopes above Finkenberg

Photos: Ch. Schwann



North Sea Cycling Route (NSCR) – Cycling On (CO2): the brand "Nordseeküsten-Radweg" (North Coast Cycling Route)

The tourism product NSCR is not protected in the law governing trademarked names, but the marketing of the transnational cycling route has been underpinned with permanent working structures that ensure its long-term existence. The Rogaland/Norway region, for instance, has taken over full economic and organisational responsibility for the continuation of the management of joint activities and in particular the tourist Internet pages by the year 2010. The route is of considerable economic significance for the region and the interest in its long-term existence is therefore great.

In North Germany, an interregional working group concerning the North Sea cycle route has been called into life as part of the project. The Tourismusverband Landkreis Stade/Elbe e.V. is the coordinating office for the working group, in which protagonists from the cities of Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven and the administrative districts of Cuxhaven, Stade, Frisia and Wesermarsch work together. Marketing activities for the route are being elaborated within the working group and are being jointly financed by allocation. Here too, the institutionalised cooperation safeguards the development standards introduced through the NSCR brand in the long term.

North Sea Bio Energy (NSBE): development and distribution of technical processes

The research part of the project consisted of the development of a new process to increase the biogas yield from plants. A process developed by the University of Bonn on commission from the partners for the enzymatic breakdown of fibre plants already found application throughout Germany during the course of the project. The transnational application within the project alliance has served to promote the spread of this technical innovation outside the partnership.

Safety@Sea: technical innovation for follow-on projects

As part of the project, a so-called Fast Time Numerical Navigator was developed that enables forecasts to be made about collisions and groundings with the aid of data-based calculations. The Navigator is implemented by the partners within the framework of the North Sea information Centre set up through the project. The technology elaborated during the project has led to the optimisation of the software used by a Danish partner. The Navigator is also being used within the context of a transnational project conducted between Swedish, Danish and Finnish partners (Baltic Sea Safety BaSSy).

Oderregio und Ella: new working bases through large-scale mapping of flood danger

Both projects have tackled the issue of flood protection on the Oder and Elbe for the first time as a spatial planning and conceptional task for a wider sphere of action. In both projects, a mapping of the danger of flooding on the scale 1:50,000 was drawn up for the entire river catchment area and placed at the disposal of the responsible protagonists. With the data and the mapping, the transborder committees can draw upon a totally new basis for action, which sets new standards in flood management.

Photo: Infrastruktur & Umwelt Photo: Berlin and BrandenburgElla: Final conference 4.-6.12.2006 Oderregio: Floodwater Joint Planning Authority

in Frankfurt/Oder




In the NOAH project, water administrations and other partners are working on a better dissemination of information for the players involved as well as for the population during a flood incident. A flood information system that has been developed there will make it easier in future to manage flood incidents quickly and efficiently across borders. The system will possibly be imported into the Slovak Republic and Rumania. The federal state of Saxony is also interested. There are plans to use the system throughout Holland and the state of Baden-Württemberg. Similar projects are NOFDP and Timisflood. In all the projects, the creation of Internet-based decision assistance systems as a new basis for action is a central component of the activities.

A further example for innovation is the MINEWATER project. This looks at the feasibility of using geothermal energy contained in mine water for the heating or cooling of buildings. It is a demonstration project with high innovative content, the results of which can be exploited in future by other regions. Moreover, numerous "observers" from all the partner countries are integrated in the project (research facilities, interest groups from energy companies and businesses).

Within the scope of the project Urban Water, intelligent solutions are to be developed for a linking of urban development and water management. In the process, new standards and processes for water supply and distribution have been created. For instance, the experiences gained in sustainable rainwater management have led to the integration of corresponding planning principles into legislation and ongoing planning processes in Scotland. A model of participation for the public practised in Holland has been successfully tested in Germany and is to be implemented further. In Scotland new consulting mechanisms have been set up between national, regional and local planning offices. In a French project, planned measures for flood protection were able to be technically optimised through the exchange.

In a completely different subject area, the BSReHealth project aims to create integrated structures for the improvement of patient care in the Baltic Sea region. Standards and (technical) procedures in various telemedical fields have been analysed and have apparently already led to improvements in medical care in individual partner countries through the transfer of know-how (e.g. through the direct exchange of radiological data between a German and a Polish hospital). The network of political representatives from the partner countries that has been set up within the project and has its own management structure ensures that further improvements will be worked out.

Over and beyond this, it also occurs that innovations and new ideas are not developed within a project, but are indeed passed on from one country to another. In Holland, for example, the B-Sure project has provided for new standards in urban renewal: the experiences gained with the programme Soziale Stadt (Social City) in Germany, in particular, have been the subject of great interest and will be informing the conception of the Dutch guidelines for urban development.

As the examples show, the spectrum of "in- The new quality of collaboration connected ventions" developed within the scope of with the establishment of a new brand INTERREG is exceptionally broad. As has occurs, for example, as follows: the developalready been mentioned at the outset, these ment of a brand initially starts out with the are mostly process innovations and extend goal of securing a joint appearance for a profrom the purely technical to communicative duct (e.g. a long-distance hiking trail) with or organisational processes. The long-term transnational partners. Sooner or later, the sustainability of consequential effects in this question arises as to the characteristics and field is – as has already been stated – linked to the quality standards of the route guidance, the existence of structures of practice where- the accommodation facilities, the restau-by the innovation enjoys permanent use rants and other offers. Therefore, new quali(or further development) (e.g. NSBE). ty standards must be developed in a further

step so that the tourists along the route will This becomes particularly clear in the case of

come across offers of an equivalent standard the development of brands: a new label can

on their travels. In turn, the securing of such only be addressed as an innovation in the

standards requires a completely new quality sense of the system being applied here if its

of collaboration, which is addressed in this utilisation is assured by a rising number

study as an innovation. of parties involved, and if a new quality of collaboration occurs through this assurance. An analogous situation applies in the case of This can be effected through declarations of other innovations. Lasting decision-making obligation on the part of those involved, structures must be build up to secure and through contracts or through the formation disseminate them. If this has occurred, a of a new sponsorship (a society or associa- longer-term project impact can be assumed. tion, for instance). It is only this institutionalisation that safeguards the "new" on a lasting basis and elevates a brand from the status of an idea to that of an innovation.



(7) See footnote 8.

Qualification and quality management

Qualification processes take place in all projects. In the analysis of the respective effects, however, a distinction must be made between the simple learning of individuals, the acquisition of knowledge on the part of organisations and the quality management within entire structures of action.

In the first case, qualification should be understood as the acquisition of skills and proficiencies by the persons involved in the project. Such learning is practically unavoidable according to the unanimous statements of all interview partners. A longer-term effect in the sense of a process impact only emerges when the participating organisations understand how to secure this acquired knowledge for themselves over the long term. This can occur through the "holding" of the employees, through measures to spread the knowledge within the facility and through precautions for the technical safeguarding of the knowledge.

The further moulding of knowledge acquisition, which is of interest as an impact level of INTERREG, is based on these two aspects and it relates to the entire system of action in which the execution of the INTERREG project is integrated. The phenomenon that can be observed here is to a lesser extent knowledge acquisition in the form of educational sequences, but rather involves the introduction of procedural routines started during

the course of a project, which lead to a permanent and systematic appropriation of knowledge and experience in the relevant areas.

The step from simple learning to systematic knowledge acquisition requires time. Well organised know-how transfer can initially effect an improvement of the regional or local political process through individual learning and the appropriation of knowledge by the organisations involved. The orientation towards good foreign examples generates attention among those responsible and external protagonist. In good time, an ambition grows out of this to tackle things at a higher level as a matter of principle and to take corresponding measures in this direction. Ultimately, structures of procedure develop that are familiar from certification or quality management processes7: the exchange of experience grows into the standard procedure of every new activity, or to put it another way, one's own manner of proceeding is systematically questioned in the long run.

Working with good paradigms from abroad and a constructive debate with the target groups of the measure aimed at, be they citizens, tourists, companies or specific thematic groups, generate a continuous drive towards improvement. This effect can reach right into political decision-making processes that are connected with the respective task.

Metropolitan Areas: intensification of the urban-regional cooperation

The effects of the urban-regional quality management in this case are considerably diverse in line with the different initial situations: in Norway the polycentric development approach of Berlin-Brandenburg led to a new understanding of regional development, which subsequently also led to national government support for the cooperation of the eight provincial authorities of Southeast Norway.

In the Stockholm region city cooperations with an enduring concept were built up in the first and second phase of the project against the background of the Berlin-Brandenburg example.

In contrast, in Berlin-Brandenburg the Stockholm example has given the development of public transport an increased significance. In addition, the handling of the thematic spectrum of Tourismus-Industriekultur (Tourism-Industrial Culture), which was pushed in a subproject, led to a dismantling of political blockades and opened up new development prospects for the revitalisation of the Finow Canal region in Eberswalde. It was ultimately also the European quality standard that made the adoption of a commercial estate development project from Tempelhof-Schöneberg into the federal programme Stadtumbau West (Urban Redevelopment West) possible.



Artery: European standards for regional development

Photo: Nachbarschaftsverband Heidelberg-MannheimArtery: Newly designed

banks of the River Neckar

The project has clearly demonstrated that the quality of development projects can change through a good INTERREG partnership. The reason for these changes was initially the well organised knowledge transfer: the visits from foreign partners in the regions and the publication of the approaches they developed in the political and technical public domains. Unplanned knowledge transfers occurred in the process e.g. from the transfer of revitalisation approaches of the Mersey Basin Campaign. (A company aims at upgrading its location. The public authorities erect a parking area on the company premises. In a joint project, a company is founded to manage the premises.)

On the basis of the newly tested methods and courses of action, all the regions involved in the project can hardly fall behind the state that existed at the start of the Artery project. Wabe GmbH, for example, a key company in the Ruhrtal for the qualification and employment of difficult-to-place persons, has operated organisation development inhouse with the Artery project that is leading, through the improved quality of their activities and the regional competition with other establishments, to a general rise in the quality level of the regional training and employment measures.

Photo: Wabe GmbH Artery: Hardenstein ferry

Alpcity: regional quality management through the transfer of knowledge and Best Practices

The focus of collaboration lay in the exchange of Best Practices in the treatment of development problems of Alpine mountain villages and towns. Through these means, the guidelines elaborated within the Alpcity framework flowed into the regional political guidelines for the development of the small mountain villages in the Italian province of Lombardia as well as for the promotion of the regional retail trade. In the state of Lower Austria, projects were able to be initiated through the cooperation the implementation of which has been difficult up to now at the local level (e.g. offers for young people in the rural region). The comparison with other regions within the framework of a benchmarking has had a particularly supportive impact here.



WIHHC: an infrastructure for acting at the European level

The reconstitution of old waterway links in the city centres is a complex subject. Transnationality initially generates a high attention rate on the political side: the value of transnational projects is recognised because an urban revitalisation strategy can be improved in a sustainable manner in the context of transnational partners. That applies to an eminent degree to the effects for urban tourism or local recreation that can be expected in the wake of the actual renewal: here, a quality management funded by transnational contacts has developed in the wake of the INTERREG project, whose longer-term consequence will be the high standard of urban development policy.

POWER: development of offshore wind energy boosted

The project aiming to support the economic and technological utilisation of offshore wind energy in the North Sea region has been able to improve the development strategies for the offshore wind energy sector in several partner regions, particularly in Suffolk County and in Bremerhaven. In Suffolk the project has furthered new protagonist structures between business and administration and has contributed towards establishing offshore wind energy as an autonomous business sector. In Bremerhaven, in the expansion of the offshore sector, the experience gained in Great Britain and Denmark has been transferred in a targeted manner into the elaboration of regional development. A benchmarking with other regions has provided information about own gaps in the relevant value-added chain so that a competitively oriented expansion of the structures is taking place in all partner regions.

Photo: ecolo GbR POWER: Handover of the POWER Declaration


The B-Shure project aims at investigating the conditions for success of key investments with the example of sites in water locations. In Great Britain the concomitant knowledge transfer has promoted participatory approaches in urban development. For example, city politicians have taken part in a think tank on the theme of citizen participation and are now implementing the experiences gained in their local communities.

The project goal of ITISS consisted in improving the coordination of traffic information in the cities and regions and thus alleviating the traffic in the partner regions, as well as making local public transport more attractive overall for its users. In the project partner city of Cologne, the transnational collaboration and the exchange with comparable model projects has led to a broadening of the application knowledge.

(8) With the norm series EN ISO 9000 ff. standards have been created that create the international comparability of measures for quality assurance. If a firm or administration is qualified according to these norms, one can speak of a specific procedural standard for quality assurance.

Quality management means – and that is shown by the certifications behind the prevalent norms (e.g. ISO 9000)8 – the introduction and monitoring of processes. Inter alia, these processes are to ensure that customers wishes are taken into account, errors are avoided, and possible process optimisations are realised. Transferred to the management of an INTERREG project or a regional subproject, that means: intensified and improved participation procedures with those involved (customer orientation), an intensive view of comparable projects and processes at home and abroad (avoiding errors) and a more open and more constructive relationship within the protagonist structure (process optimisation) are adopted step-by-step and

provide for better results in the long term. The examples have shown that INTERREG can initiate such processes. In the case of many cities and regions, these improvements will gain entry into the culture of constructive debate. However, quality management is not something that runs by itself. There is always the possibility of setting political priorities differently, that decisive protagonists depart from the urban or regional decisionmaking process, or the deficit of relevant financing sources leads to a creeping loss of once-acquired qualifications. The decisive question is therefore under what conditions a long-term quality development in terms of quality management takes place.



The analysis as a whole and the project examples presented here show that the effects in quality management are linked to the existence of well-functioning communication systems. Projects that work as a network relatively isolated from their "setting" can rarely go beyond simple learning within the scope of the participating organisations through the transnational cooperation. In practice, this means that INTERREG projects develop their greatest impact in quality management in functioning urban development and regional development processes. The "transnational" occurs here, loftily put, in a local or regional garb9. A new process begins after the execution of INTERREG projects, the concomitant mutual visits of the transnational partners, an analysis of the partner projects, the discussion about stimuli gained for one's own project in the political-public realm, and a certain degree of attention in the public domain. In the next step, own plans are critically examined and a search is conducted for good examples of execution and improvements not just in one's own "patch" that one can use to enrich one's own project.

Through the activities mentioned, INTERREG itself becomes a quality feature and can frequently be used to engage the political process of a city or region for a specific project. The "quality label" INTERREG will therefore hardly have emerged out of the advance laurels of public attention. Generally speaking, the instruments and formalities of the EU in no way produce unanimous approval in the public domain, and even high sums of money that flow from the Structural Funds often remain unnoticed by the public at

large. The observation suggests itself that the "instrument" INTERREG has earned its prestige in the respective local or regional public realm by virtue of its own value and benefit. Unfortunately, this prestige is restricted to the respective project region and earns hardly any extensive attention within the different political and administrative decision-making levels.

Development of regional transnational control competence

The impacts of INTERREG described here primarily relate to structural changes that all those involved (and every observer too) perceive clearly, yet are difficult to reduce to a single terminological denominator. Common circumlocutions for project impacts like "initial conditions improved", "collaboration intensified" or "preconditions created" are not infrequent when describing thematic results and impacts. However, if one turns one's attention to project impacts that are as longterm and lasting as possible, descriptive paraphrases remain unsatisfactory. That lies not only in the inevitable fuzziness of a generalising and abstracted perspective, but also in the broad spectrum of themes and objectives pursued today by INTERREG projects. In order to describe the effects of a certain kind of projects, one has to fall back on analytical concepts. So as to grasp the benefits of certain projects more effectively in conceptual terms, the Regional Governance concept, which has gained a certain degree of fame over the last few years, is particularly suitable.

(9) One could make a comparison here with the phenomenon of globalisation: even a producer who works without Global Sourcing and markets exclusively at the regional level produces under the conditions of globalisation: in order to remain competitive, he must constantly make the developments, quality and price of the world market his own measuring rod.

(10) On the various roots of the Governance concept cf. Schuppert 2006

(11) Cf. Mayntz 2004: 5

Regional Governance

Governance generally denotes a control or regulatory system in which the coordination of public and private players for the production of public goods is in the forefront.10 However, it is not the players and their actions that are at the centre of the Governance concept, but to an essential degree also the regulatory structure that determines the actions. The Governance concept no longer sees the "state" as a unitarian control agent but as that what it is today: a differentiated network of offices and bodies that are only hierarchically organised in part.11

Regional Governance as the conceptual background of the impact analysis sharpens the perspective of the study for the fact that many of the cases to be analysed do not involve networks but rather emerging transnational, regional control structures, in which the offices, bodies and agencies are integrated along with other protagonists. For that reason, the effect of such networks, apart from lying in the achievement of thematic long-term goals such as flood protection or economic revitalisation, also lies in a progressive self-organisation over and beyond national borders.



The recourse to the Regional Governance concept has proved to be a guidepost for the interviews to the extent that the development of control competencies has indeed shown itself to be an immanent long-term goal orientation in some of the projects examined: wherever one sets about designing concepts and strategies with the neighbours, fending off dangers together or mastering regional challenges in business, the environment, transport or other themes, it is about building up the empowerment and competence to act on a transnational and simultaneously regional level. This is where the special feature of INTERREG B lies: a multilateral, interstate collaboration takes place, which only involves partial areas of the state territories and which therefore has to be executed by regional institutions. The themes

and patterns of participation are so diverse and complex that there is hardly any chance of regulating the corresponding objectives through the direct access of national governments (even if these are in agreement). With such problems, the path necessarily leads rather over the phases Project and Network to Regional Governance Structures, which are ultimately possibly able to steer development processes in the transnational sphere of action. Independent of any milestone as regards content, projects of the type addressed here almost exclusively serve to achieve a capacity to act that equals that in comparable political fields (e.g. the cooperation of cities and regions) on the national level. It is in this field that one of the essential fields of impact of INTERREG is located.

STRING: Transnational capacity to act through political prioritisation

The project STRING II had the aim of intensifying the collaboration between Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein and Danish Seeland and the South Swedish Schonen in a broad spectrum of themes. In this connection, a large number of projects and activities were promoted at various levels.

Today, STRING (4 years after the end of the STRING II project) can be described as established example of collaboration. There are three levels of cooperation: the Political Forum with high-ranking representatives, the Steering Group and the Common Secretariat, in which one person participates from a region in each case and which works at distributed locations. The Secretariat prepares the committees. The core of the project is a relatively small team of the regional partners, among whom all matters are coordinated and agreed upon.

A Joint Declaration functions as the foundation for the orientation of content; this Declaration was signed by high-ranking representatives from the partner states and regions on 4 July 2006 in Malmö. The Political Forum meets every year.

STRING is a special case within the spectrum of INTERREG projects since two whole German federal states are involved not only on specific technical and thematic issues but in principle across all regional-political and economic-political fields of activity as well: Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Apart from the setup of a transnational structure of action, the effects of the project also lie in the fact that, as part of a special "Europeanization" of the federal state government bodies as well, the spatial reference of their activities is being rethought by all government offices. Political priorities at the highest level thus represent a kind of informal compass for government departments, but also for "free" actors in regional policy, and a gradual compaction of the transnational relations creates, precisely through their particulate nature, those sustainable effects that the various INTERREG projects have intended.



Source: OderRegio 2006

Figure 6 Flood Hazard Map of Schwedt (Oder) and its surroundings

OderRegio: small-scale partnership for rapid decisions

The foundation for setting up a regional transnational flood management is a comprehensive mapping of the flood dangers. In order to keep the capacity to act and the ability to make decisions in such an undertaking as great as possible, the choice was deliberately made to work with a small-scale partnership within the Oderregio project framework. The responsible ministries in the Czech Republic and Poland, the Woiwodeschaft Dolnoslaskie (Lower Silesia) in Poland as the authorised representative of the government for the Oder 2006-2013,12 and in Germany the Gemeinsame Landesplanung Berlin-Brandenburg (joint planning authority of Berlin and Brandenburg), the Saxony Ministry of the Interior and the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs were taking part in the project.

Now that the project has achieved its goals, the implementation is incumbent upon the national water authorities, who are working together in the International Commission for the Protection of the Odra River against Pollution (ICPO) and the BoundaryWaters Commission (for the section of the waterway along the border). The ICPO has set up a new AGHochwasserschutz (Flooding Working Party) to tackle the subject according to thepreliminary work in a more extensive manner.

Further follow-on effects of the project also depend on when and to what extent legalregulations for regional and urban land-use planning as well as for disaster control adopt the new working bases and secure their further development (e.g. through refinement of the benchmark).

OderRegio: Brochure "Living with Floods"

Photo: OderRegio 2005

(12) The Polish government designates individual regional authorities as regional coordinators for all measures associated with the respective context.

ELLA:larger partnership for greater decision-making capability

In contrast to the Oderregio project, the initiators of ELLA have configured the partnership in such a way that a range offormally responsible authorities have been integrated for purposes of flood protection. This approach increased the number ofpartners to 23 over the Oderregio project (6). Despite the time- and resource-consuming collaboration, the ELLA project wasable to reach its targets: the project results include the development of a flood management system in conjunction withregional planning instances (at the administrative district level) and the use of the data basis for urban development andmunicipal flood protection (at the municipal level).

In establishing project-related structures of action, it has particularly been shown that the need for coordination, alone withinthe German Federal Republic between the federal states, the state authorities and the local authorities, and also the need forcoordination between the local authorities poses high demands on those involved. In order to consolidate the effects of the pro-ject - the continuous further development of an integrated flood management on the River Elbe -, pressure for action was gen-erated "from below" through a travelling exhibition. The intensified information provided to the population about the danger offlooding and its transboundary dynamics has generated a certain expectation towards the responsible authorities, whichthese authorities now have to meet. This stimulus is evidently continuing in an upwards direction: a demand for integrated coordination at the state level is being directed by the administrative districts. The example of the Stendhal District (pilotproject) ultimately shows that the cooperation between the federal states involved is also subject to a stronger pressure of expectation: the Stendhal District has brought the experience of a flood management system into Kommunale AG Elbetal (LocalElbe Valley Working Group), which embraces seven districts in four federal states. As is in the case of Oderregio, this projectwas promoted by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs.

At the transnational level of action, the ICPER (International Commission for the Protection of the Elbe River) will be working fur-ther with the project results. Moreover, activities are being derived from ELLA in terms of projects, which are to beconducted in a bilateral exchange between the Czech Republic and Germany through INTERREG IVA.

Source: Infrastruktur und Umwelt 2006

The 5 cross-border fields of action of the ELLA

A The protection of existing retention areas / the assign-ment of flood area

B The extension of retentionareas / flood areas (e.g. dikerelocation, assignment offloodpains

C The recourse of run-offrain-water in the area

D Minimizing the damage po-tential (e.g. retention area pre-cautions, structural precautions,risk prevention)

E Technical flood controlmeasures (e.g. dams anddikes)

Figure 7:ELLA; From: Cross-border fields of action of the ELLA strategy

28Impacts and Benefits of Transnational Projects (INTERREG III B) Research Studies Issue 138




Harbasins: informal cooperation replaces state regulations

Within the scope of the project, a coordinated handling of the EU Water Framework Directive and the Habitats Directive has meanwhile been achieved. Project results from the trilateral Wadden Sea collaboration between Germany, Holland and Denmark are being adopted into the respective work or are informing joint agreements. Thanks to the project, an informal regional level of cooperation has thus emerged, the influence of which on future political decisions is considerably high since it relieves the nation states of an (elaborate) revision of their respective national regulations.

Northern Maritime Corridor I+II (NMC): control of maritime traffic

Through the two projects that have been carried out up to now, it has been possible to establish a maritime traffic corridor that links the coastal regions and economic zones of the North Sea with those on the Barents Sea more effectively. An essential success factor for the goals achieved up to now lies in the creation of a network of public and private protagonists (government bodies, transport companies, ports etc.). In this way, project activities and the joint platform are co-responsible for the common aim of the countries allied in the task force Meeresautobahn Nordsee (Motorway of the North Sea), namely Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, England and Norway, to promote the short-haul maritime shipping network.

Safety @ Sea: improved capacity to act for the coastal administrations

The project has generated the following procedures: data on shipping movements (AIS – Automatic Identification System) are harmonised and exchanged with the establishment of the North Sea Information Centre within a regional North Sea alliance. In addition, an informal network of coastal administrations was created, which is to initiate joint action in future to enhance safety in the North Sea.

ClimChAlp: ability to act in climate change conditions

The project is concerned with the repercussions of the climate change and corresponding strategies of adaptation within the Alpine region. The partnership has formulated recommendations for politicians, the public and administrative entities, and has thus provided concrete foundations for supporting political decisions at the regional, national and transnational level as regards climate change. Joint fields of work for the future have been elaborated in individual subprojects for the funding period that is meanwhile running, e.g. in the fields of monitoring, modelling, spatial planning and economiy.

One of the work packages was concerned with the development of a database with the natural risks caused by the climate change in the Alpine region. On this basis, a flexible resonance network is being set up on a transnational basis in which relevant protagonists from the administrative domain and experts are involved. The subproject is working closely together with the PlanAlp (Platform of Natural Hazards) platform set up by the Alpine Convention and is part of the Alpine Convention's implementation strategy for this platform.

Since the project is of national political interest, the BMVBS bears a part of the national co-financing, and a close technical exchange is taking place with the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning.

Within the scope of the project's chain of effects, it can be expected for the federal state of Bavaria that the results will flow into the setup of the state development programme: up to now, it is exclusively statements about climate change that are included, and none about adaptation to the climate change and its repercussions. The results and findings of the project will also have an impact on the conception of regional and technical planning.




The project SDF is also concerned with the subject of flood protection, in this case along the River Rhine and several tributaries. The project wants to establish a permanent planning culture along the flow regions of the Rhine so that an integrated, joint processing of the concerns related to the river can take place in future. Within the scope of the subproject, the establishment of informal forms of collaboration for the future protection and development of the river regions is an essential project impact, for example as part of the subproject Flusserweiterung Hondsbroeksche Pleij in Holland.

The Carpathian Project is an initiative of the Carpathian Convention, an alliance between the governing authorities of the Carpathian region. The project has the goal of stimulating a lasting development process for the Carpathian region. Whereas political resolutions are prepared in the Carpathian Convention, it is the implementation of exemplary individual projects that takes place within the structures created by the INTERREG project. Key subject domains in the process are – along the lines of the Alpine Convention too – nature conservation and tourism.

(13) The Carpathian Project demonstrates similarities as regards the approach. Here, too, a transnational consultation process was at the outset, which led to the foundation of the Carpathian Convention – a political commission to protect the Carpathians.

It is interesting to follow up the different ways in which the establishment of Regional Governance structures can occur. On the one hand – as in the case of what has probably been the only example to date, namely STRING – this can be through a transnational consultation process at the highest level, which leads to an ongoing compaction and institutionalisation of the collaboration.13

This consultation process begins with mutual visits, which result in regular meetings, at which an exchange of information initially occurs, followed by the agreement of common strategic goals. With the support of INTERREG; this phase can then glide into a phase of stronger concretisation, which has its impact on the agreement and budgeting of joint projects. This approach is similar to the "normal path" of achieving interstate cooperation.

The route through consultations presupposes that federal states on the German side are involved in a project with their entire territory, since it is only then that the state governments can be incorporated in the consultations. Moreover, only the priorities of a state government can adopt the function of a general orientation for the regional players for a larger territory. The building up of Regional Governance through consultations will be met with less frequently since it presupposes that the entire state is affected by a project plan. For city states, such a prerequisite is more likely to be fulfilled.

Another path towards the setting up of transnational control competencies lies in the establishment of a project network with as many project partners as possible, which can also be involved at a later stage in the implementation of the project results as well. Theoretically speaking, the ideal way towards a transnational control structure lies in the development of a network comprising all the responsible government bodies, offices

and players required for its implementation. Such an approach, however, must frequently battle with great obstacles: first of all, transnational projects reach such a high number of partners with this method that the effort of cooperation takes up an extremely high amount of time. Moreover, one almost always only reaches a portion of the respectively responsible state-internal competence chains through formally responsible partners. Since the project cannot integrate the state-internal decision-making process, time frames and project budgets become difficult to calculate.

Many projects are looking for a way out of this dilemma by involving only a part of the responsible partners, or in building up a project network that rather comprises persons with know-how and concerned parties who have no decision-making competencies as regards a binding implementation of their insights. Such structures are well-suited to collate the relevant knowledge and thus create solid foundations for action for the government authorities and offices that are actually responsible. Classic examples are, for example, research projects or planning concepts regarding development corridors. In both cases, the subsequent realisation of results is essentially dependent on infrastructural decisions and investments decided upon by other agencies (see e.g. the projects Northern Maritime Corridor, Safety@Sea).

Such partnerships can be described as result structures since they do not involve an alliance of the subsequently deciding agencies. Rather, it concerns the temporally limited setup of a differently configured network, which can tackle technical problems in a congenial manner without being bothered by different kinds of interrelationships in contrast to the "normal process" and its concomitant diplomatic, legal and organisational problems. The term result structure is



also appropriate when formally responsible offices are integrated in a project in which there is an agreement about the noncommittal nature of the results.

Since such projects initially remain within the non-committal domain, complicated decision-making and coordination processes often do not occur. The partners can concentrate on the contents of the work and arrive at a consensus relatively quickly. The disadvantage of pure result structures lies in the lack of any kind of implementing competence. Their impact thus depends strongly on how far it becomes possible with the results achieved to mobilise formally responsible agencies and players for purposes of implementation.

This disadvantage does not exist with projects with a formally responsible network structure. In such cases, the probabilities of a subsequent implementation of what has been achieved is significantly higher. Nevertheless, this benefit is purchased at the cost of a grave disadvantage: owing to the more elaborate decision-making processes and the consequent increase in time required for the production of results, they remain behind those produced by the result structures even when the time periods are identical.

The somewhat polarising opposition of result structure and effect structure here is oriented around the output-result-impact chain of events used for purposes of orientation. It illustrates the dilemma faced by the partnerships in their configuration: if they involve as many players responsible for decision-making, the implementation would be assured. On the other hand, the project result within the time horizon of an INTERREG partnership would be massively at risk. If, however, the initiators of a project choose to set up a result structure, the implementation of the results by the responsible agencies remains open, at least to a partial degree. One question ultimately faced by the initiators of a project in choosing between result structure and impact structure alternatives is that of priority: should the project serve the acquisition of insight or does one want to commit the partners to a long-term obligation?

Projects like ELLA make it clear that the attempt to build up an impact structure within the framework of an INTERREG project ultimately always ends up in a compromise between result and impact structure, since the pure impact structure is mostly too elaborate in terms of the decision process for an

undertaking with project character because of the number of players and the greater degree of obligation of the agreements for the executive agencies.

Within this polarity the importance of key players within the framework of Regional Governance projects is evident: within the context presented, key players are offices and agencies that have a relative autonomous degree of decision-making competence in the respective domain.14 The larger the limit of the number of such actors is on both sides, the higher the probability of a project's implementation rises, the longer one has to reckon with very long time frames for the production of project results and, in particular, project impacts.

Summary of the results

The results of the case studies reveal in a total overview not only a very broad spectrum of impacts and beneficial effects. Moreover, it becomes particularly clear that one-dimensional projects hardly exist as far as the effects are concerned. The majority of the projects examined exhibit a central area of impact, but also reveal – conditioned by the various different subprojects and partial strategies of the individual partners – impacts in other impact areas.

The evaluation also shows that the benefit of INTERREG projects is frequently incorrectly assessed since the measuring instruments are not the right ones: for example, INTERREG projects very often mobilise a host of major and minor streams of capital, yet they are still not investment projects for that reason. In addition, it is frequently this expectation that conceals the actual value of the corresponding projects. In the projects examined here, it can be assumed with some degree of certainty that the monetary leverage effects frequently only set smaller capital flows in motion, but they modify these in the direction of a further financial (and fiscal) commitment. Small-scale investments ameliorated by INTERREG lead in the long term to a greater benefit derived from the money invested through the effect chain of consumption, income and investment. That certainly does not apply to every project, but it represents one of the key mechanisms of effect of projects with this priority of benefit.

Similar observations can be made on the subject of innovation: projects produce no inventions that are subsequently admired by the specialists. Rather, they form new pro

(14) It is therefore not sufficient if actors are involved who are located in high echelons of the state apparatus, the formal responsibility for the desired procedure must be additionally present.



cesses that facilitate transnational cooperations or help ensure that these cooperations can demonstrate concrete results. In this way, new protagonist structures are created for working on a new set of tasks, a better use of infrastructures is facilitated, and new products are brought onto the market. INTERREG projects construct structures without carving these in stone. Particularly in the creation of development-capable structures, the profit of a project-related collaboration lies in the transnational context.

In the case of the so-called know-how transfer or the qualification effect, one can venture the observation that "learning", which is often not regarded as a "hard effect", does not indeed represent the mere acquisition of knowledge on the part of individuals or the archiving of knowledge by organisations. The learning process of a city or region is much more of a systematic nature, since the transnational background with all its facts is permanently built into the regional procedural culture. That is a kind of qualification that decays not as easily as an organisation's knowledge about analyses and reports residing in its own archives.

If one wants to ultimately carry out an evaluation of projects that have implicitly or explicitly devoted themselves to the setting up of transnational, regional practical competencies, the type of partnership should initially be clarified. If it is a result structure, one should not expect a linear and timely implementation of the results. If, in contrast, it is an impact structure that is being considered, or a mixture of both forms, there should be no disappointment as regards any long drawn-out decision processes (and any necessary further project phases). In appraising such projects, it is rather the question under which conditions the initiators have decided in favour of the one or other structure. If the right compromise has been made under the conditions that prevailed at the start of the project, the benefit or impact of the project is to be evaluated in the context of this situation and not against the horizon of some idealised objective. If there is at all a general measuring rod against which one can gauge the success of these projects, it is that of the normal diplomatic process: a process of convergence, controlled by central state organs and extending over many years, with an outcome that is not always certain.

It has been hinted at more than once that false expectations as regards the impact of INTERREG projects can lead to a misconcep

tion of their real strengths. Although the impact of each project turns out to more or less multidimensional (insofar as the project is at all successful), it can once again be made clear what the strengths of INTERREG projects are on the basis of an aggregation of the remarks about ideally typical projects:

• Ideally typical innovation projects are in the fewest of cases such projects that enable only one insight to be generated or one concept to be produced, but are almost always projects that build up a practical structure for the use of the project results themselves or transfer the procedure developed onto these.

• Ideally typical investment projects are not necessarily such projects that generate the greatest streams of capital, but are above all projects that enable smaller-scale capital flows to be redirected (through the creation of new products or promotion circumstances).

• Ideally typical quality management projects are to be primarily found in city networks or in regional partnerships. This is where a further development of regional policy takes place initiated by the transnational cooperation: through innovative examples from the transnational partners, new practical approaches and projects emerge in every region that ensure a qualitative further development of the respective subject area in the city or region. The impacts of these projects are mostly regionally limited. The interaction density is generally insufficient for a quality development across the entire cooperation region.

• Ideally typical Regional Governance projects are projects that create important interstate bases of action for spatial development policy and initiate their introduction. Their reference is mostly a common transborder territory and, from a thematic standpoint, a relatively complex functional interrelationship with just as complex networks. Such projects produce "the quick result" in the fewest of cases. They frequently require "aftercare" on the part of the agencies responsible within the field of action. Follow-on projects, which serve the continuation of activities and the further stabilisation of built-up networks, are not uncommon.



4.3 Benefits of INTERREG: what reaches the regions?

When one talks with project partners, programme participants or other INTERREG specialists about the general value of INTERREG, the term intercultural competence often falls. What is meant here are skills and proficiencies that are acquired in the process of the transnational collaboration and that help understand the partners better, to realise what one can expect of them, and to estimate the conditions under which an international agreement has chances of being realised. Moreover, such capabilities also relate to the totally practical shaping of international communication, to the type of encounter at meetings, during small talk or in e-mail exchange.

All people who have gained such competence are certain to have taken an important step in the direction of a European future, not just in personal terms but also for their respective establishment. On the other hand, it is striking that outsiders from politics, government authorities and other establishments often have a very critical standpoint towards this general qualification or the activity associated with it. The talk is then of "wining and dining" and as to whether "one needs it at all?" In the view of many external observers, INTERREG projects consist of a succession of superfluous meetings, from which nothing visible emerges at all. So, when considering the value of INTERREG, the first concern is to express this nonvisible, this non-tangible aspect in words because it will hardly be possible to depict the advantages and long-term effects of the INTERREG programme without a general basis of understanding.

If one looks at the activities of important managers, one will ascertain that their task today lies to an overwhelming part in the organisation of talks. In the era of communication, control (management) essentially means the organisation and shaping of communication. Moreover, a very great significance is given to intercultural communication in management. Prof. Dr Karl-Dieter Grüske, the rector of Erlangen-Nuremberg University, for example stresses at a science day in 2008: "In the wake of globalisation, intercultural competence has become a success factor in corporate performance. An extensive sensitisation for communication with our neighbours from the Czech Republic to China is required."15 There is noth

ing to add there. The building up of international communication between companies, their amalgamation, or the reorganisation within a global corporation is indeed similar to the INTERREG activity since both activities are concerned with the collaboration of the most different of agencies and the mastery of highly complex coordination tasks. It is a moot point why a management function is associated with recognition, yet a corresponding acquisition of competence in the transnational arena of collaboration is seen as secondary.

Managers have the competence to decide. That means that their control activities lead to the fact that decisions are also made by downstream units, decisions which are in the spirit of the management. This is a fundamental difference between the communication processes taking place in a company and those that can be observed within the INTERREG framework. INTERREG as a set of instruments only exists for one reason: nobody is in the driver's seat within the transnational network. There is, essentially speaking, no kind of decision-making competence for the respective, common subject, and the participants are exclusively dependent on voluntary agreements. It is at this point that one comes up against the central dilemma of INTERREG B, or the dilemma of Regional Governance projects: this form of collaboration only exists because there is no transnational decision-making competence in the relevant task field. Since this does not exist, the projects often do not meet with any recognition in the political and public domains. Since the political realm is also concerned with the aggregation of power and the exercise of decision-making competencies, a disdain of INTERREG on the part of national political observers is even understandable, if unacceptable with a view to the European challenges.

Under the conditions of "powerlessness", the capability of people and establishments to take part and organise highly complex transnational communication processes tends to be undervalued. To say it in clear terms: the INTERREG instrument will not be able to escape this dilemma. And depending on the initial situation, the demands on the participants intensify by themselves. The greater the lack of decision-making for a transnational regional theme is, the more important are the communicative and organisational capabilities discussed here for the resolution of problems in hand. For that reason, the im

(15) Report on 17 July 2008 at http://www.em-n.eu/wissenschaftstag.



(16) A coordinating attendance of the INTERREG process like in Germany through the BMVBS and its offices is, in contrast, thoroughly necessary.

portance of intercultural communication, understood as the ability to build up and maintain transnational networks, should be seen as a fundamental condition for the solution of many future-related problems that require urgent solution below the level of interstate diplomacy.

Even if one recognises this state of affairs, the answer to the question as to the concrete benefit of the INTERREG B instrument is still lacking, both from the general perspective and the standpoint of the German players. This value should by definition be derived from the transnationality, since "profits" that do not arise out such a constellation do not necessarily require an INTERREG programme. They can also be achieved with national promotion programmes. For this reason, the term or content of transnationality is of special interest. In political science, transnationality denotes interstate relations between population groups and organised interests without the integration of the state level itself. At least for the German side, one can ask oneself in view of the federal state structure whether INTERREG B fulfils this condition at all. However, if one takes the "spirit" of this terminology, the INTERREG B activity fulfils the criterion of transnationality pretty precisely: a broad spectrum of public and private actors works together within the partnerships in non- or inadequately regulated interstate domains. The value of this cooperation lies now in the special "task profile" of the transnationality:

Following the principle of subsidiarity, the European Commission and the member states are endeavouring towards a decentralised and cooperative design of regional policy, based on the insight that a central management of regional development processes is not politically appropriate or not to be mastered in administrative terms. In Germany this circumstance has sparked off a scientific regionalisation debate 15 years ago, in the wake of which a part of today's popular Regional Governance approaches stand. Against this background, transnationality is the interstate task of training up regional actors in a common region for the joint regulation of their regional concerns. And if one takes the insights gained from the relevant research over recent years seriously, there is no alternative to this kind of "regionalisation" of interstate and transnational tasks. A central state steering of these activities with all its problems of detail, regional-geographical and actor-related peculiarities

would lead to a hopeless overburdening of the responsible agencies.16

Benefits of INTERREG for the cooperation areas and Europe

The special value of INTERREG therefore lies in the fact that the transnational cooperation in Europe's cooperation areas is absolutely necessary to produce plans, draw up concepts and create structures, the development of which would require much longer time through the instrument of international diplomacy. INTERREG is indispensable to be able to act decentrally and in a problem-centred manner. Consequently, transnational cooperation, as the ability of regional actors to act in this way, has a major significance for business and the population in the cooperation areas. Whether it concerns the longterm development of transport corridors, climate protection in sensitive natural regions, the protection of the population against environmental dangers or a systematic linking of economic potential: these tasks are protracted, complex, frequently associated with provisional failures, yet thoroughly imperative and hardly possible to carry out through international regulation. In line with the corresponding regional framework conditions, solutions are developed through INTERREG projects for the widest variety of problem situations incurred by the cooperations areas. For instance, many impacts within the North and Baltic Sea Region are related to maritime- and coast-related tasks, to the protection of the Alps in the Alpine Space, to the revitalisation of brownfields (areas of former industrial utilisation) in North-West Europe, and to the large-scale development of transport corridors in Eastern Europe, to name just a few examples.

A less scientific paraphrase of this statement is as follows: if the European integration is to arrive in the cooperation areas, European thinking and action must be integrated in the design of regional tasks. This is where the overriding goal and the practical work of INTERREG lie. The value of INTERREG projects is not invisible to the citizens in the process, e.g. visible quality improvements in urban and regional development projects. By the way, undesired "secondary effects" as in the case of globalisation are not to be expected from the transnational cooperation. Inter alia, this lies in the integrated project character of INTERREG. What does not work for the purpose of the common good or what has



proved to be counterproductive is simply not repeated. Against this background, it is obvious that the national states, and thus the German federal government too, profit directly from a successful transnational cooperation.

Value of INTERREG for the German federal states

The German federal states – insofar as this is politically desired – can deploy INTERREG as an instrument of their own state development. To start with, plans and conceptions in the area of structural policy and state development are enriched with European, and therefore more wide-ranging aspects. INTERREG B extends far beyond the "simple" transboundary cooperation in spatial terms and can therefore depict the functionally interconnected regions for economic and social action, which are increasing, in its cooperation areas. That is shown e.g. by corridor projects like ABLandbridge.17 At the process level, appropriate INTERREG projects have a retroactive effect on the countryinternal networking of the government bodies and actors responsible in the respective specialist area. The reason for this presumably lies in the ad hoc interaction lines built within the projects, which sometimes lie in contrast to the well-rehearsed routines and therefore cause irritations here and there, but on the other hand free up informational synergetic effects. This is very clearly shown by projects like ELLA or Oderregio a swell as various other projects from the realm of flood protection (such as SAFER or SDF18).

Value of INTERREG for the regions

The majority of the regions that exist in the German Federal Republic are voluntary alliances sustained by intermunicipal cooperation and a network of actors in society. If these are federations or special-purpose alliances, their legal brief does not generally extend over the entire spectrum of regional policy, but relates to a few obligatory tasks that – more by means of a voluntary collaboration – are enriched by further activities. Here, too, it is the constructive collaboration between equal partners that promotes the regional development. INTERREG enables such alliances to sharpen their joint profile in many thematic areas. In particular the local authorities, which lie again and again in competition with one another for firms and inhabitants, experience themselves as part

ners in a larger context. Tourism concepts and strategies (e.g. MariTour: Maritime Tourism Marketing in the Baltic Sea Region), cluster strategies (e.g. ELAT: Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen Technology Triangle) and other small-scale initiatives suddenly receive a European dimension. Regionality becomes easier to experience when it is experienced in the context of a European partnership. The prospects for success for regional cooperation are considerably enhanced as a result.

Value of INTERREG for the local authorities

In their own regional settings, the local authorities often only have a small chance to find appropriate stimulators for their own further development. Apart from the wider overall regional conditions, which are then identical, the similarities are either great or the competition hinders a mutual exchange. In contrast, INTERREG provides the chance to find partners for a specific task in hand, without the competition hindering the exchange of information or excessive similarity precluding reciprocal impulses. Through the different institutional arrangements in the various states, the stimulator function is presumably even greater than it would be in (rather rare) inner-German partnerships. The local and municipal quality management receives – as does the regional variation – creative enrichment through INTERREG. The "transnational" here is a better local government policy. This is especially expressed in the respective subject areas handled. Whether it relates to the revitalisation of neighbourhoods, an economic strategy or the establishment of new services for the population: through the multifaceted transnational cooperation, errors are avoided, and building and development undertakings are better tailored to their user group with the help of model projects and manifest increased follow-on effects.

Companies

Across the bulk of the INTERREG projects, companies are only involved in the transnational cooperation to a very small extent. That lies in part in the – meanwhile relaxed – restrictions of the programme19, but also in the specific remit of the projects. The value of companies is most clearly shown in the development of marketable technical innovations (rarely occurs), in companies from transport and logistics, and in small and very small enterprises in the field of leisure and tourism.

(17) Even if it is still too early to make an impact forecast for this project

(18) SAFER: Strategies and Actions for Flood Emergency Risk Management; SDF: Sustainable Development of Floodplains

(19) Within the scope of INTERREG III B companies can only participate in projects to a very limited extent.



Wherever present or future transport routes are served, logistics providers profit through their improved planning horizons and through the creation of discussion links with responsible government bodies. The value of small enterprises in tourism is the orientation around what are for them lucrative target groups, a development of quality in their offers, and the chance to join supraregional and transnational marketing systems.

Since there is no homogenous INTERREG user group apart from the actors specified above, no general conclusions can be drawn

here. The effects depend too much on their respective field of action. But it still should be stressed that the value sketched out here occurs in many cases in addition to the thematic or technical yield harvested from the projects. Successful partnerships reach not only their primary targets in the various fields of regional development, but also generate supplementary impacts in the four areas described further above in this study.


37

5 Recommendations for action

As described in Ch. 3, a series of workshops took place within the framework of the cooperative impact analysis, in which project partners and programme participants took part. The task of these events was to elaborate the emergence conditions for the project impacts ascertained and to discuss recommendations for action for the various participation and design levels. In the case of the design levels, it was above all the project partners themselves and the bodies in Germany within federal and state governments involved in the design who were in the forefront of the observation. Since the new funding period had already started (spring 2008) at the time of the events in question, attention was placed less on changes in the regulation structures or the programmatic objectives of INTERREG, but more on the remaining possibilities of action for the organisational definition and the communicative accompaniment of INTERREG.

5.1 Partnership

It goes without saying that, in building up a project partnership, attention must be paid to the thematic objectives of the project and its integration in existing actor structures. All partners should also be competent for the purposes of the tasks they have to master. The greater the dovetailing of interests is at the outset and the more precisely the goals are formulated, the more effectively the project runs.

There are, however, several aspects which, when taken into consideration, can fertilise the work of the partnership and reinforce the impacts of the project. Accordingly, a mixed partnership, in which not all the partners are subject to the same practical constraints, is a good precondition for a creative collaboration. Partnerships "aerated" in this respect comprise e.g. not only research facilities or not only specialised government bodies. Also favourable for success is a taut project leadership through a competent lead partner, who can draw upon good management qualities. Therefore, particularly in the case of large partnerships, a two-stage organisational structure of the project should also be aimed at: so-called work-package leaders or – in the case of regional networks – regional lead partners should be fully responsible for their respective assignment and the further

ancillary partners. With this responsibility, such decentralised partners of course gain creative freedom for their respective "hinterland" as well.

When longer-term competencies (for instance for a follow-on project) are to be built up, the allocation of coordination and management services should be made against this background. A complete allocation of these assignments to a competent service establishment mostly assures – according to the observation made – a smooth flow of the project. However, the lead partner acquires no lasting management competence in this manner since they remain with the service provider after the project has ended. Between complete allocation and the concomitant loss of competence on the one hand and a full-fledged self-administration on the other side of the spectrum, there exist a variety of hybrid forms, which can be selected according to the subsequent tasks in hand. In building up long-term control competence, it is sensible, for example, when parts of the lead partner competence remain with the institution that is responsible for the future process design in a particular domain of action.

In order to guarantee that transnational management qualities or the Europe competence more or less acquired by every partner remain within its organisational structure, INTERREG projects should not be handled in ad hoc formed organisational units, or put another way, it is advantageous if these bodies continue to exist after the project ends. Furthermore, a high continuity of personnel can also be strived at overall in the partner network. Every change of personnel calls for an additional effort of coordination owing to the need for a period of adjustment to and familiarisation with the new job.

The joint objective must be secured in a partnership through carefully prepared contracts. These contracts should contain a thematic commitment to the key central political conceptions of the respective cooperation area. Every discussion or even altercation about the setting of joint objectives costs an extreme amount of time and must therefore already conducted be as far as possible during the pre-project stage.

INTERREG projects require a taut leadership through the respective lead partner with a si



multaneously high degree of freedom for the partners. Whereas the former is important for the timely progression of a project, all partners must be capable of deploying their entire creativity to secure the project success within their own setting. The partners should not be hindered in their freedom of design despite a tight management.

In order to improve perception of INTERREG in a radical way and to strengthen the impact of the project, a professional communication strategy is urgently recommended for every project. This task and its execution should be transferred to a project partners specially trained for the purpose or an external specialist service provider. The communication activity of a partnership must generally extend beyond the programme requirements. These particularly place the sphere of action of the cooperation zone in the foreground. They secure the communication in the direction of a transnational INTERREG public. Important addressees of the dissemination of project results are in many cases the inhabitants of a partner city or region as well along with politicians, technical government bodies and actors in the national and regional surroundings. The dissemination of project results and information must therefore occur in a target group-oriented manner. No broad-based dispersion of all the information is called for, but the preparation of special contents for addressing individual groups of people in a targeted manner.

If one looks at the budgets for communication in the business community, it quickly becomes clear that INTERREG projects cannot achieve a widespread impact with their communication through a strong media presence: INTERREG projects lack the resources for massive advertising campaigns. The core of a communication strategy for the majority of INTERREG projects is therefore face-to-face communication: with lectures, written and oral individual (or target group-specific) addresses, it is possible to win over the key bodies and politicians for what has been achieved and inspire important persons to give further support to the respective activity. In the process, every project partner is an ambassador of the project for his respective "project hinterland".

It is a consequence of the project funding that no further budget is available for the communication after a project has ended. The advertising is therefore discontinued at that moment when the product has ended. This drawback can only be diminished by

united efforts on the part of the project partners and an additional funding from the national side. Corresponding funding possibilities from the federal Transnational Co-operation programme could be of further assistance here.

5.2 Programme level

In the external presentation of INTERREG, it is often neglected by the actors that, in contrast to "classical Structural Funding", INTERREG does not support the "everyone against everyone" competition, but strengthens the joint competitiveness of transnational regions. This aspect is being and should be emphasised more by all participants, in particular towards the population. The subject of Communication can thus also be extended to the circle of programme administrators and programme designers. What is meant here are the offices and agencies involved in the execution of the programme as well as the consultation or ongoing support of the applying or project partnerships. Apart from the INTERREG secretariats in Germany, these especially include the BMVBS, the BBR, the National Contact Points and the members in the German committees. Within the scope of their respective possibilities, all these institutions can work towards improving the communication of the projects in the sense of better national feedback and networking. In the majority of cases, a careful reconnection of one's own work within the national political and administrative system is of great significance here. Within federally structured Germany, politicians and the relevant government offices of the federal states, in particular, should be informed about the project work and possibly also integrated in the decision-making process. In general terms, the offices concerned with INTERREG can pay attention to an adequate budget for the communication. In individual cases the funding of additional information campaigns is to be recommended, as was successfully practised within the framework of the German federal Transnational Cooperation programme, e.g. in the ELLA project.

In the case of tasks that occur in several cooperation areas and are similarly in theme (e.g. flood protection), information management across cooperation areas or collaboration between relevant actors has proved to be helpful for the emergence of long-term project impacts. Against this background, technical and organisational assistance in devel


39 Recommendations for action

oping a comprehensive transfer of information across all cooperation areas is thoroughly sensible. As actor, it is in the first instance the German national government, as an "escort" of all the INTERREG events under German participation, which comes into question. However, support should also be provided from the INTERREG programmes involved and INTERACT20.

All these improvements ultimately serve the federal and state governments' own interest since they not only raise the value of INTERREG in general, but also promote the state's exercise of functions. For that reason, the potential of the INTERREG programme for realising interesting national- and state-political themes should be exploited more intensively. Owing to their fixed durations, their informal partner structure and the transnational knowledge transfer, INTERREG projects provide good possibilities to process themes of national or state-specific interest and bring them closer to a decision. Moreover, INTERREG projects are frequently suitable to promote in a decisive way the practical implementation of transnational agreements, such as the Alpine Convention or the trilateral Wadden Sea collaboration. These possibilities of strategic deployment for national and state government should be sounded out further and suitable forms of instrumentalising the programme should be examined. In this conjunction, the following supplementary aspects can be considered:

• In the case of innovation projects: A concentration of procedural and process sequences is recommendable here. It should also be ensured that new developments, whether of a technical or organisational kind, find application beyond the circle of the partnership as well. In the case of tourism brand development, a homogenous structure of interests within the partnership is important since the brand will only endure if all partners commit themselves to the survival of brand and product. Just as the development of a permanent support organisation structure, this can be supported on the German side in strategically important cases.

• In the case of investment projects: Followon effects in the form of investment turn out to be all the greater and more sustained, the more precisely the primary investment is planned. Since investments are generally eligible for promotion within the framework of the 2007-2013 funding period, care should be taken during the

consultation and approval that the applicants explain what probability exists that the planned investments will trigger follow-on effects (perhaps of a different type). In the case of investment-paving projects, it should be laid out in a clear and transparent way how the beneficiaries of an investment are involved in the organisation of the result. A depiction of the possibilities of economical utilisation of project results and the monetary value that can be expected is helpful when politicians and other key actors are to be won over for a project.

• In the case of quality management projects: The initiation of regional quality development through INTERREG functions particularly well when a development strategy that is desired (by national or state government) is Europeanised by the project or the INTERREG project can be used as a stimulator for a new regional development strategy.

• In the case of Regional Governance projects: In the case of projects that are devoted to the development of regional control competencies, and in view of the possibility of choosing between a quick production of results and a longer-lasting implementation, it should first of all be clarified where the target priority lies: should the project rather gain insights, the partnership should be developed in the form of a result structure. That is to say, it is rather composed of technical experts; if one wants to aim at a long-term commitment of the partners and plan concrete implementation steps in a binding manner, as many offices responsible for decision-making should be integrated in the partnership (impact structure). In the case of complicated technical problems, a two-phase composition of the project should be assumed since the analysis of the structure of interests is frequently not affordable in the runup to a project owing to the high costs. Consequently, the right "mixture" between result and impact structure cannot be found quickly enough in the respective subject area.

5.3 Outlook

INTERREG is situated in a quality loop like many other programmes: during the course of a funding period, the project partnerships as well as the accompanying offices and agencies gain professionalism. It is particu

(20) INTERACT promotes the implementation of the transnational cooperation in the border and cooperation areas of INTERREG.



larly the transnational management competencies described in Ch. 4 that should be mentioned in this conjunction. The next programme period then follows on fro these new capabilities with higher demands made on the participants.

This professionalisation loop considerably advances the transnational collaboration in Europe and contributes to an increasingly targeted use of the programme resources. Responsibility for the process will be shared by the partnership as long as the incentives to participate in the programme can compensate the cost and effort of participation.

The special character of INTERREG B consists in the creation of a regional ability to make decisions or act within regions in which such a capability did not previously exist before the deployment of the INTERREG programme. As has been shown in Ch. 4, the production of practically functional networks in spatial layouts without formal decision-making competence (only fragmented responsibilities on the part of nation states for their respective state territory) is one of the greater challenges of European integration. In this context, all new member states should get the chance to enter what is meanwhile a high level of professionalisation. The demands made on projects in the respective cooperation areas must be modified accordingly.

The programme design valid from 2007 onwards is particularly focussed on strategic projects that in each case cover the entire cooperation area or significant parts of it. It should be noted here that cooperation areas are not functionally interconnected zones but appropriate geographical frameworks for the development of transnational collaboration. Projects with a greater geographical reference do not automatic exhibit the greatest impact. If one recalls the distinction between result and impact structure, the development of large and complex partnerships with the goal of a large-scale capability of action can lead to the fact that one does not achieve a great deal during the course of one or two project terms. A good mixture between result and impact structure in a smaller regional context is in some circumstances much more promising.

The professed goal of using INTERREG to prepare promotion schemes from other pro

grammes and also to aim at a linking of promotion programmes is essentially correct. It can, however, lead to the fact that the closure of financing gaps through INTERREG becomes elevated to a quality criterion in the evaluation of applications. When that occurs, the danger exists that INTERREG becomes an instrument of Structural Funding (and only plays a subordinate role due to a lack of financial weight) and not – as desired – that Structural Funding in part becomes an instrument of transnational cooperation.

The orientation around the economic development of the regions pushed in the current programming period and the eased possibilities of participation in the partnerships for companies is to be welcomed. Nevertheless, it should always also be taken into account that companies prefer clearly structured and straightforward "undertakings". The sometimes heuristic and always complex course of INTERREG projects does not necessarily make business enterprises the ideal partners of any INTERREG cooperation. The focus on economic themes can be difficult to realise in the outcome.

Against the backdrop of the impacts of INTERREG IIIB examined in this study and the conditions that led to their creation, there is a danger of project operators and programme escorts being overstressed in the wake of the new objectives of INTERREG. If the worst comes to the worst, these could lead to effective projects with "wrong" objectives or currently non-preferred partnerships and reference areas being excluded.

In the event of uncertainties in this regard, the Territorial Agenda of the EU should be consulted as an assisting criterion, and not so much on account of its content and thematic goals (which dovetail to some extent with the INTERREG programme objectives). Apart from the technical and regional objectives, the entire TAEU refers to structural process changes in the sense of the transnationality described here. With the TAEU, the spatial planning ministers of the EU have published a kind of compass, which points to the path forward for the efficiency of interstate action in the regions in the future: all projects that build up demonstrably sustainable procedural structures in this sense should be in the focus of a strategic promotion of the "new" programming period.


41

6 Literature

6.1 Thematic literature

Ahlke, B./Görmar, W./Hartz, A.: Territoriale Agenda der EU und transnationale Zusammenarbeit. In: Informationen zur Raumentwicklung 7/8.2007, Bonn 2007

Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung: Transnationale Zusammenarbeit. TransCoop 05 Report. Berichte Band 22, Bonn 2005 (a)

Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (Ed.): Transnationale Zusammenarbeit in der Raumentwicklung. In: Informationen zur Raumentwicklung Issue 11/12.2005, Bonn 2005 (b)

Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung: Aufbau Ost – Europäisch vernetzt. Bonn 2006

Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung / Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (Eds.): Europa wächst zusammen. Transnationale Zusammenarbeit von Städten und Regionen. Special publication, Bonn 2007

Deutscher Verband für Wohnungswesen, Städtebau und Raumordnung e.V. (Eds.): Bundesprogramm Transnationale Zusammenarbeit. Berlin/Brüssel 2006

Diller, C.: Regional Governance by and with Government: Die Rolle staatlicher Rahmensetzungen und Akteure in drei Prozessen der Regionalbildung. Professorial dissertation, Faculty 7 of the TU Berlin, Berlin

Hummelbrunner, R.: Process Monitoring of Impacts. Proposal for a New Approach to Monitor the Implementation of Territorial Cooperation Programmes. Working Paper of the ÖAR Regionalberatung commissioned by Interact Point MTEC, Vienna 2006

Ministry for Infrastructures and Transports (Cadses Managing Authority): Cadses Mid-Term Report Update – Draft. Manuscript, without place of publication, 2005

Österreichisches Institut für Raumplanung: Mid-Term Evaluation Update INTERREG IIIB Alpine Space Programme 2000-2006. Manuscript, Vienna 2005

Planungsgruppe agl: Analyse und Aufbereitung der Ergebnisse von Projekten der transnationalen Zusammenarbeit. Final Report, Saarbrücken 2007

Ramboll Management: The Baltic Sea Region INTERREG IIIB Neighbourhood Programme. Midterm Evaluation – Update. Final Report, Manuscript, Arhus 2005

van Run, P./Bergs, R./Stead, D./Stumm, T.: Update of the midterm evaluation of the INTERREG IIIB North West Europe Programme, Leiden, 2005

Territorial Agenda of the European Union. Towards a More Competitive and Sustainable Europe of Diverse Regions. Agreed on the occasion of the Informal Meeting on Urban Development and Territorial Cohesion in Leipzig on 24 / 25 May 2007.

Tresse, K./Myers, C.: North Sea Programme Progress Report. Download from www.INTERREGnorthsea.org, without place and date of publication

6.2 Theoretical and process-analytical literature

Benz, A.: Governance - Modebegriff oder nützliches sozialwissenschaftliches Konzept? In: Ders. (Ed.): Governance – Regieren in komplexen Regelsystemen. Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden 2004

Benz. A./Scharpf, F.W./Zintl, R. (Ed.): Horizontale Politikverflechtung. Zur Theorie von Verhandlungssystemen. Cologne 1992

Benz, A. u.a. (Eds.): Handbuch Governance. Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Anwendungsfelder. Wiesbaden 2007

Chisholm, D.: Coordination without Hierarchy. Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems. Oxford 1992

Dose, N.: Trends und Herausforderungen der politischen Steuerungstheorie. In: Grande, E./Prätorius, R. (Eds.): Politische Steuerung und neue Staatlichkeit, Baden Baden 2003



Görlitz, A.: Politische Steuerung. Ein Studienbuch. Opladen 1995

Mayntz, R.: Governance Theory als fortentwickelte Steuerungstheorie? Working Paper of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies 04/1, Cologne 2004

Mayntz, R./Scharpf, F.W. (Eds.): Gesellschaftliche Selbstregelung und politische Steuerung. Frankfurt am Main/New York 1995

Scharpf, F.W.: Interaktionsformen. Akteurzentrierter Institutionalismus in der Politikforschung. Wiesbaden 2000

Stockmann, R.: Einführung in die Evaluation, in: Ders. (Ed.): Handbuch zur Evaluation. Münster 2007

Willke, H. Systemtheorie III: Steuerungstheorie. Stuttgart 2001

Windhoff-Héritier, A. (Ed.): Policy Analyse. Opladen 1993



Project Overview - Case Studies

Short title Long title Programme Partners Ran from Ran until Months

A-B LANDBRIDGE ADRIATIC-BALTIC LANDBRIDGE CADSES 23 Jun 06 Apr 08 22

Alp City Local endogenous development and urban regeneration of small Alps alpine towns

12 Aug 04 Apr 07 32

AlpFRail

Operational solutions for the transalpine railway freight traffic for sustainable management of Alps connections of the economic areas within the alpine space

10 Feb 03 Jul 07 54

ARTery Restoring & Redeveloping Riverside Landscapes as NWE Regions' Artery

15 Apr 02 Oct 06 55

BEEN Baltic Energy Efficiency Network

Baltic Sea for the Building Stock

26 Jun 05 Dec 07 30

ClimChAlp Climate Change, Impacts and Adaptation Strategies in the Alps Alpine Space

22 Mar 06 Mar 08 24

CO 2 The North Sea Cycle Route 2 -

North Sea Cycling On

9 Mar 03 Dec 06 47

ELLA ELBE - LABE flood management measures by transnational CADSES spatial planning (ELLA)

23 Jul 03 Dec 06 42

EuRoB II

Institutionalization of the European Route of Brick Gothic (EuRoB) - a culturally and histori

Baltic Sea cally inspired tourism route marketing the brick Gothic heritage and related cultural offers

34 Dec 04 Dec 07 36

HARBASINS Harmonised River Basins

North Sea Strategies North Sea

6 Nov 04 Jun 08 44


45 Project Overview - Case Studies

Project content Results URL

Feasibility analyses and actor networks for the improvement of transport links (in particular by ship and rail) between North Europe and the Mediterranean area

Identification of 3 main corridors and strategy of action ("Roadmap") to promote them; potential analyses, logistics recommendations, institutional network

www.ablandbridge.eu

Problems of diminished socioeconomic development, quality of life and the quality of urban development in smaller towns

Pilot projects for Best Practice in the field of economic development, services/quality of life, urban environment and urban cooperations; political consulting

www.alpcity.it

Analysis of the railbound logistics freight traffic in the Alpine Space ("Thinking in networks and systems, not in axes")

Relocation of heavy goods traffic onto the railways and interstate optimisation of the freight traffic on the railways. intelligent networking of the rail network in the Alpine Space for an optimal freight transport with the integration of the Mediterranean ports

www.alpfrail.com

Improving the attractiveness of urban areas along river courses

Strategies, exemplary solutions, pilot plans and pilot investments for urban riverside areas

www.artery.eu.com

Exemplary solutions for saving energy in multi-storey building blocks (prefabricated highrises) taking into account different national, regional and local conditions

Overview of national policies and saving potentials, optimised technological solutions as examples, recommendations for legal and institutional regulations, web-based calculation models for livingspace administrations, pilot examples and transferable model solutions

www.been-online.net

Impacts of the climate change on the Alpine region, development of complex adaptation strategies and instruments to react to natural hazards

Summary report on climate change, climate models and natural hazards in the Alps. Assessment of the effects of climate change on spatial development, nature and business, analysis and further development of monitoring systems and instruments to confront natural hazards, strategic recommendations

www.climchalp.org

Further development of the North Sea Cycle Route

Self-supporting management structure, route expansion, quality enhancement, pilot projects, tourism products, information centres and materials, public relations

www.northsea-cycle.com

Transnational cooperation between practically all regional planning offices within the Elbe catchment area, development of an integrated water management with the aid of a transnational planning strategy, improvement of the planning instruments (above all land-use plans)

Development of risk maps for the Elbe catchment area, consideration of water management in regional plans, institutionalisation of the transnational cooperation

www.ella-interreg.org

Further development and institutionalisation of a transnational culturally inspired tourism route ("European Route of Brick Gothic")

Establishment of a permanent route management, marketing strategy, permanent network of experts, merchandising, sub-routes, new tourism products, Internet route offers, handbook collating experience on the establishment and permanent running of a transnational culture and tourism route, "Good Practice" examples of local route marketing

www.eurob.org

Improved water management collaboration in coastal areas, estuaries and riverside areas, exchange of experience to further the successful implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive

Establishment of a network of public institutions and scientific institutes, standardised scientific parameters

www.harbasins.org



Short title Long title Programme Partnere Ran from Ran until Months

Metropolitan Areas +

Network of Regional Systems of European Capitals in the Baltic Sea Region - Strengthening of Competitiveness by Sustainable Development of Functional Metropolitan Areas

Baltic Sea 27 Mar 03 Mar 06 37

MONITRAF Monitoring of Road Traffic related Effects in the Alpine Space and Common Measures

Alps 8 Jan 05 Jun 08 42

NMC – NSR Northern Maritime Corridor -North Sea Region

North Sea 11 Mar 02 Dec 05 47

NMC lI - MONS NMC II - Motorway of the Northern Seas

North Sea 9 Nov 04 Jun 08 44

NSBE North Sea Bio Energy Nordsee 5 Feb 04 Dec 07 47

ODERREGIO

Transnational Action Program – Spatial Planning for Preventive Flood Protection in the Oder Catchment Area

CADSES 6 Dec 02 Dec 06 49

POWER Pushing Offshore Wind Energy Regions

North Sea 5 Feb 04 Jun 07 41

S@S Safety at Sea North Sea 7 Feb 04 Jun 07 41

STRING II South-Western Baltic Sea TransRegional Area -Implementing New Geography

Baltic Sea 6 Jun 02 Jun 04 25




Strategic collaboration in a network of metropolitan regions, promotion of polycentric development, consolidation of competitiveness through the development of city-hinterland relations and the minimisation of conflicts over utilisation

Network for strategic cooperation and the transfer of know-how, workshops, coordinated pilot projects, Best Practice catalogue, investment proposals, joint marketing, Internet portal

www.metropolitan-areas.net

Recording and examination of the effects of the inneralpine and transalpine road traffic along the four transit corridors Brenner, Fréjus, Gotthard and Mont-Blanc, reduction of negative impacts of the road traffic while enhancing the quality of life without relocation of traffic onto other axes

Analysis of traffic, meteorology, noise emissions, air pollution and other sustainability-relevant sectors; selection, definition and harmonisation of indicators, scenarios, trends, conclusions and national compliance regulations, database applications, valuation system, recommendations for the reduction of air pollution and noise emissions

www.monitraf.org

Development of maritime transport networks for the connection of the North Sea and Barents Sea region, promotion of Short Sea Shipping and improved intermodal links

Regional action plans to promote Short Sea Shipping, new intermodal transport links, policy recommendations

www.northernmaritimecorridor.no

Promotion of the "Northern Maritime Corridor" as the 'Motorway of the Sea', integration in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN)

Improved accessibility of the North Sea regions with links to the Baltic Sea and to North-West Europe, scenarios for polycentric port development, initiation of a new and improved "Short-Sea Shipping Service"

www.northernmaritimecorridor.no

Increasing the share of biomass in energy generation, tests and demonstrations of new technologies and processes

Pilot plants for biogas, biomass and biopetrol for the purpose of gathering data and modelling the process chains, awareness campaign and virtual marketplace to disseminate the project results, Best Practice

www.northseabioenergy.org

Elaboration of a transnationally coordinated programme of action between Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany regarding spatial planning for preventive flood protection in the Oder catchment area

Active information management, alternative strategies for preventive flood protection, transnational agreement on the proposed measures, targeted public relations

www.oderregio.org

Promotion of the offshore wind energy industry, positioning of the North Sea as a hotspot in the world market for wind energy, new employment potentials, improvement of the planning, participation and decision processes pertaining to offshore wind energy farms, training for the wind energy employment market

Network of centres of excellence, wind energy industry needs assessments, decision support system for participation, information package, "Summer School" courses

www.offshore-power.net

Harmonising of management strategies in the North Sea Region pertaining to risks at sea, coastal area management, reduction of the dangerous effects of maritime catastrophes

Practical methods of maritime safety for planners, pilot projects www.safetyatsea.se

Further development and implementation of the transnational development concept through projects in the fields of political cooperation, environment, transport infrastructure and settlement structure, economic development and cultural integration

Strategy for coastal regions, tourism offers, cultural projects, online further training, SME promotion, support for young entrepreneurs/designers

www.balticstring.net




VIA ALPINA Promoting the natural and cultural heritage of the Alps on a network of hiking trails

Alps 15 Jan 01 Dec 04 48

VIADVENTURE

Basing on "Via Alpina" network of hiking trails VIA ALPINA DEVELOPMENT VENTURE develops local initiatives for high quality tourism and education

Alps 15 Jan 05 Mar 08 39

WIHCC Water in Historic City Centres NWE 6 Sep 03 Dec 03 53




Development of sustainable transnational green tourism offers along the Great Alpine Transversal, which extends through eight Alpine countries

Marketing concept for the entire route, regional marketing activities. Development of a quality management system and of booking systems, development of various tourist service offers, digitalisations

www.via-alpina.com

Practical implementation of results from the forerunner project Via Alpina (2001-2004) in the tourism domain through the broad-based integration of key persons and the public

Information campaign on the product "Via Alpina", development and marketing of tourism offers, realisation of the "Via Alpina Quality Guide", improvement of the tourism offers, tools for environmental education

www.via-alpina.com

Transnational collaboration to revitalise inner-city areas within the catchment areas of watercourses. As a result, the potential of "water resources" is to be better exploited for purposes of urban development.

Information platform, public relations, demonstration projects and pilot investments for the revitalisation of urban spaces along river courses

www.wihcc.nl

Source: Information supplied by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR), as at 10/2008, own amendments



Project List - Follow-Up Action


Baltic eHealth Improving Life in Rural Areas of the Baltic Sea Region by eHealth Services

Baltic Sea 10 Jun 04 Jun 07 36

B-SURE Building on small scale regeneration of urban heritage along rivers and canals

North Sea 8 Feb 04 May 07 40

Carpathian Project Protection and sustainable development of the Carpathians in a transnational framework

CADSES 19 Sep 05 Aug 08 36

DIS-ALP DISaster Information System of ALPine regions

Alps 8 Jul 03 Jun 06 36

ELAT Eindhoven, Leuven, Aachen Technology Triangle

NWE 6 May 01 Jun 08 86

Flows Flood Plain Land Use Optimizing Workable Sustainability

North Sea 5 Sep 02 Jun 06 46

ITIS Intermodal Traveller Information Systems

NWE 10 Sep 03 Aug 07 48

LANCEWADPLAN

Integrated Landscape and Cultural Heritage Management and Development Plan for the Wadden Sea Region

North Sea 5 Feb 04 Jun 07 41


51 Project List - Follow-Up Action


Use of telemedicine for rural areas Recommendations, pilot projects (access to radiology and ultrasound), business models, implementation of the implementation in new services, reduction of the patient transport costs by 10 percent

www.Baltic-eHealth.org

Enhancement of the quality of public spaces along rivers and canals through "Pin Point Strategies" (small investments with great impact)

Guideline and demo projects for planners and politicians relating to "trigger money", increased awareness about the significance of urban river landscapes

www.b-sure-interreg.net

Protection and sustainable development of the mountain landscape in the Carpathians

Database, Carpathian atlas, geoportal, overall concept for spatial development and industry strategies, intergovernmental platform, pilot actions to implement the Carpathian Convention, exemplary solutions, handbook for local actors and development agencies

www.carpathianproject.eu

Harmonisation and development of new instruments to monitor natural catastrophes, instruction of experts

Observation tools, practical tests in the open, further training for officials, joint GIS-based web database, thesaurus

www.dis-alp.org

Development of a knowledge economy region across national borders in the region Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen

Programme agency, transregional innovation strategy, company start-ups, promotion of "incubators" and business/science clusters, permanent network, plan of action to promote technological, commercial and entrepreneurial competence

www.elat.org

More sustained devlopement in fluvial regions with risks of flooding through improvement of the relevant technical and social information and its integration in decision support programmes for regional development and water management

Models and risk types, better knowledge of flood risks, broad-based public integration, planning, information symbols for flood risks, "Good Practice"

www.flows.nu

Preliminary work for a web-based Europewide information system for tourists through model development of the participating partner cities

Development of an evaluation method to examine the needs of tourists, development of the technical and operational framework to make the information system available and implement it, evaluation of the target achievement level (congruence between tourist requirements and information provision through the system), examination of the application field for the development of a "European Travel Information Web" (ETIW)

www.itiss-eu.com/

Development, management and sustainable use of the landscape and cultural heritage of the Wadden Sea

Integrated political and management strategy for the Wadden Sea, cultural landscape plans, other theme-related plans (e.g. urban development, environmental management), joint action plan, web-based handbook on cultural management

www.lancewadplan.org




MARITOUR Maritime Tourism Marketing in the Baltic Sea Region

Baltic Sea 22 Jan 06 Dec 07 24

MINEWATER Sustainable Redevelopment of Mining Communities

NWE 5 Oct 02 Jun 08 69

NOAH NOAH NWE 8 Oct 02 Jun 08 69

NOFDP Nature orientated Flood Damage Prevention

NWE 7 Oct 02 Jun 08 69

RegioMarket

Optimizing Regional Marketing and networking for development of a corporate marketing and branding strategy for the entire Alpine Space

Alps 17 Mar 06 Mar 08 24

REVIT Towards More Effective and Sustainable Brownfield Revitalisation Policies

NWE 6 Jan 02 Aug 07 68

SAFER

Strategies and Actions/Implementations for Flood Emergency Risk management

NWE 5 Jan 02 Jun 08 78

SAND

Spatial quality enhancement, Alleviation of flood damage and Nature enlargement through (re)Development of mineral extraction sites along rivers





Maritime tourism marketing in the Baltic Sea Region

Marketing activities for marinas, network with permanent central management, marina database and information system, harmonised harbour visitor statistics, web-based tourist information, benchmarking system for marinas, harbour planning

www.maritour.net

Extraction of geothermal energy from the water in closed (flooded) mines and the use of this energy for district heating and for the cooling of homes, offices and other (commercial) buildings

Pilot actions to demonstrate the feasibility and economic viability of the energy source, test of energy extraction for cooling and heating purposes, installation and testing of pumps and pump operation as well as the installation and testing of an energy extraction centre, installation of the heat and energy distribution infrastructure

www.minewaterproject.info

Adequate provision of information and network formation for flood prevention

Development and permanent operation of a Flood Information and Warning System (FLIWAS) for river regions, permanent network of actors, system test through dry runs, further training measures

www.noah-interreg.net

Nature-oriented flood damage prevention

Database, information centre, network, software-aided Information and Decision Support System (IDSS) taking into consideration hydraulic, hydrological and ecological aspects, broadly applicable, multistage evaluation system for flood monitoring, case studies and pilot investments

www.nofdp.net

Coordinated improvement of regional marketing and collaboration with regard to a joint branding and marketing strategy for the Alpine Space

SWOT analysis, branding and marketing strategy, exemplary solutions (Best Practice), quality management in the fields food industry, tourism, hotel and catering industry, and renewable energies, network of actors

www.regiomarket.org

Innovative strategies to revitalise previously industrially used and now idle-lying areas close to the city centre in six cities involved in the project (Stuttgart, Nantes, Tilburg, Hengelo, Torfean, Medway)

Case and feasibility studies, plans, marketing, "Best Practice" and pilot projects for the revitalisation of brownfields

www.revit-nweurope.org

Reduction of the damage potential of extreme flooding through targeted measures for flood area management and flood prevention

15 regional networks for flood protection, map of the danger areas; new, dynamic methods of determining flood hazard potentials taking into account erosion)

www.eu-safer.de

Development of an integrated approach for the use of former excavation sites for flood retention

Test model to examine the floodwater retention, 2D hydraulic model to simulate sediment processes, scenarios of use, data base of water quality, study on the influence of flood retention areas on the groundwater quality in multifunctionally used areas, hydrodynamic model to evaluate the penetration of infiltration of contaminants in groundwater

www.sandproject.nl




SDF Sustainable Development of Flood Plains


TIMIS Transnational Internet Map Information System on Flooding

NWE 7 Jul 03 Jun 08 61

Urban Water Sustainable Watermanagement in Urban Space

NWE 8 Jul 03 Jun 08 61

WCI-II Water City International II North Sea 12 Feb 02 Sep 06 56



Project Content Results URL

Measures to improve the water drainage of the Rhine through the construction of water retention basins

Studies, plans and investment measures for flood management www.sdfproject.nl

Transnational web-based map and information system for floodwater protection

Further development of the water balance model LARSIM (Large Area Runoff Simulation Model) for runoff forecasting in river areas, GIS atlas, Internet platform for flood warning, transnationally harmonised alarm and evacuation plans

www.timisflood.net

Integrated water management in urban areas

Exemplary solutions for the better design of water supply and wastewater disposal systems, improved organisational, legal and financial framework, technical plans and pilot investments, integration of water management, urban and regional planning, public relations

www.urban-water.org

Development and implementation of water plans, exploitation of the potential of water for urban development (e.g. recreation)

Improvement of the urban water systems in the partner cities and their immediate vicinity, integration of the theme of "water" in urban planning

www.watercity.org

Source: Information supplied by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR), as at 10/2008, own amendments

impacts and benefits of transnational projects (interreg

Documents