Fourth Nordic-Scottish Conference on Regional Policy

Francois Josserand of EPRC and Kai Boheme of Nordregio presented the conclusions of their research project on 'Trans-national Nordic-Scottish Co-operation: Lessons for Policy and Practice' at the conference held from 6 to 9 September 2003 in Örnskoeldsvik, Sweden. John Bachtler also led a discussion on the consequences of enlargement and the process of creating new structural funds and state aid policies after 2006. The conference brought together Nordic and Scottish senior officials and private sector interests from central, regional and local levels in order to identify actions addressing common challenges. In their presentation, Franncois and Kai pointed to a number of important conclusions for future co-operation. They showed that trans-national projects funded under Interreg IIC and Article 10 have made a substantive and meaningful contribution to the key topics for Nordic-Scottish co-operation, notably 'regional policy and sustainable development', 'regional policy in rural and peripheral areas' and 'the new economy and the information society'. Important benefits have been achieved in terms of information exchange, know-how transfer and extended communication networks, and, to a lesser extent, the generation of new ideas and new approaches to solving economic development problems. There is also evidence of substantial impacts with respect to international understanding, well-functioning networks and individual learning, but there is a major challenge as to how individual benefits can be embedded and broadened to ensure better organisational learning. For more on Nordic-Scottish Co-operation, see: http://www.eprc.strath.ac.uk/nordic