Dr. Fabian Gal (p), Prof Sébastien Bourdin

Administrative burden is well-documented as a barrier to access in social policy, yet its operation in territorial development policies remains theoretically underdeveloped. This article examines how administrative burden restricts access to EU Cohesion Policy, analysing ERDF and ESF implementation in the French region of Auvergne–Rhône-Alpes. Drawing on 52 semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, participant observation, and a beneficiary survey, it identifies two pathways through which administrative burden generates differential exclusion: stringent verification requirements that produce compliance and psychological costs filtering out lower-capacity organisations, and coordination failures that generate ambiguity raising information and compliance costs for less-resourced actors. A third pathway — inter-organisational cooperation as a mitigating mechanism — is shown to operate selectively, reproducing rather than correcting the insider advantage it theoretically counters. The findings reveal a paradox of administrative cohesion: a policy designed to correct territorial inequalities systematically excludes the actors it is most intended to reach.

Dr. Dagmara Kociuba (p)

The introduction of a place-based approach to the programming of the EU 2014-2020 cohesion policy required the creation of new territorial governance structures, the identification of new areas of intervention and the development of new mechanisms for the distribution of funds. The implementation of a new cohesion policy tool, Integrated Territorial Investments (ITIs), dedicated to supporting the sustainable development of cities and their functional areas, played a key role in this process.
This paper focuses on identifying the main challenges for introducing PBPs in functional urban areas (FUAs) in the context of lessons learned from the implementation of ITIs in Poland.
The research was divided into three stages. The first stage outlined the main ITIs assumptions and the effects of their implementation in the form of formalizing inter-municipal partnerships reflected in the delimitation of the area of intervention, creating territorial governance mechanisms and strategic planning rules, as well as highlighting the changes that have taken place in the 2021-2027 cycle. In the second stage, these were compared with the perspective of actors involved in the implementation of ITIs based on the results of a questionnaire survey conducted in 50 FUAs. Three dimensions were analyzed in detail: cooperative, institutional, and programming. In the third stage, recommendations were formulated to improve the effectiveness of implementation PBPs in FUAs.
The results of the research indicate that the reorientation of cohesion policy towards more integrated actions tailored to the needs of specific FUAs had far-reaching consequences for: 1) multi-level governance through the intensification of establishing and formalizing cooperation between municipalities at both the horizontal and vertical levels; 2) strategic planning through the requirement to develop a long-term strategy tailored to specific territorial characteristics; 3) the distribution of financial resources towards the integration of funds and programs in order to achieve synergies in investments supporting the endogenous potential of territories. The key issues for the effective implementation of ITIs included: meeting formal and legal requirements, reformulating existing cooperation schemes, and integrating spatial and financial actions on a supra-local scale
The results of the study provide decision-makers with guidelines for effective programming of cohesion policy interventions in 2028-2034.

Dr. Ana Viñuela (p)

The World Bank outlines five characteristics of the left-behind regions (or lagging regions): i) some are more dynamic than others, ii) there are “low income” and “low growth” regions, and both have the lowest social outcomes iii) demographic decline is a defining feature of lagging regions, with both fertility and net migration rates that fall below the national averages, iv) they are peripheral, but not necessarily sparse and v) jobs in lagging regions are concentrated in low value-added non-tradables.
In Europe, the present Cohesion Policy has changed the focus from traditional regions to places and people; thus it would be important to characterize and identify the left-behind “places” (and also the left-behind “people”). If following the World Bank criteria, very little can be said about the existence and persistence of these places basically due to the unavailability of GDP/income figures at a finer spatial scale than NUTS regions in the official European databases. As for the rest of socioeconomic variables mentioned by the World Bank (such as demographic, labour or geographic indicators). there is simply no comprehensive European database at local level (LAUs).
In the EXIT Project we estimated figures of average household income at local level and also collect country by country the socioeconomic variables existing at local level for years 2011 and 2021 in order to characterize, identify and illustrate the multidimensional and relative nature of the elusive left-behindness concept when applied at local level.