Mr Raul Garcia Estevez (p)

The rapid acceleration of digital technologies has reshaped spatial behaviours and labour structures, with the pandemic normalising flexible work arrangements and further decoupling residence from workplace. Teleworkability—defined as the potential to work outside the traditional workplace—has emerged as one of the most spatially consequential outcomes of the Digital Transition (DT). Yet its broader implications in mobility remain insufficiently understood, as population-wide studies remain scarce. Estonia represents a unique setting in this regard: globally recognised for its digitalisation, while characterised by a monocentric urban structure, peripheral rural regions, and socio-demographic divisions.

This study uses longitudinal, population-wide demographic data from 2019, 2022, and 2024 to examine how teleworkability shapes residential mobility patterns across Estonia’s urban hierarchy. Specifically, the analysis follows two stages, (1) origin-destination residential mobility, featuring net migration results by telework category across pandemic (2019-2022) and post-pandemic (2022-2024) periods, and (2) multinomial regression models, assessing how the teleworkability affects urbanisation, suburbanisation, and counter-urbanisation for singles and couples across the two periods, controlling for predictors linked to life-course and socio-demographic factors.

The results from net migration show marked differences between periods, with rural areas experiencing major losses in 2019-2022, yet showing positive migration in 2022-2024 among teleworking couples. Overall, digitalisation favours suburbanisation from both Tallinn and other county capitals, as core urban areas gain residents only among singles, while peripheries achieve balance among couples, remaining unattractive for singles. Regression results show that teleworkability influences residential immobility and mobility, but its effect is relatively small compared to life-course and socio-demographic and socio-economic factors. Ethnic minorities are less likely to access telework and relocate, and both age, children and occupation are strong predictors in models. Nevertheless, telework is associated with higher urbanisation and suburbanisation among singles, likely reflecting agglomeration economies and fewer mobility constraints. In contrast, relaxed commuting needs make couples who telework much less likely to urbanise, especially dual-telework households, found more likely to remain stayers, although they saw a big increase in counter-urbanisation odds in the post-pandemic period. On the other hand, partial telework couples are more likely to suburbanise, as the on-site work requirement of one partner draws households toward major urban regions.

This study builds upon the dichotomy of the DT enabling population de-concentration while concentrating jobs in major urban regions. The findings contribute to ongoing debates about regional inequalities, clarifying the role of remote work in on-going inequalities.

Ms Marianna Gergelyné Kása (p)

The impact of the FP7-to-Horizon 2020 transition on university–industry collaboration in less-developed EU
The transition from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, 2007–2013) to Horizon 2020 (H2020, 2014–2020)
intensified the excellence-based logic of competitive EU research funding. Less-developed NUTS-2 regions — those whose
2007–2009 mean GDP per capita fell below 75 percent of the EU-27 average — entered this transition with thinner
research infrastructures and weaker absorptive capacity. The descriptive allocation paradox is well documented: such
regions secure disproportionately less competitive funding relative to their research and innovation stock. What is not
yet established is whether the FP7-to-H2020 transition produced a measurable causal worsening of this gap in the
university–industry collaboration (UIC) channel specifically — the channel that EU policy designates as the primary
mechanism through which regional research ecosystems translate framework-programme funding into innovation
capacity.
This paper provides the first NUTS-2-level causal estimate of the dual-channel UIC funding gap induced by the FP7-to-
H2020 transition. The dual channel is the central conceptual novelty: the paper separates the extensive margin (H1: the
gap in the absolute count of UIC projects in which a region participates) from the intensive margin (H2: the gap in percapita
UIC funding received). The two margins jointly characterise whether the transition penalised less-developed
regions through reduced participation, through reduced funding per project, or both. The dual decomposition provides
finer-grained evidence than a single funding-gap coefficient and prepares the ground for a subsequent stage of the
project (H3) that traces the channel through to patent and co-publication outcomes

Dr. Ingmar Pastak (p), Dr Kadri Leetmaa

Anchor institutions (libraries, post offices, schools, daycare centres) are considered to be crucial for keeping alive rural community life but their role tends to be underrecognized in digital inclusion research. By leveraging existing assets like buildings and staff, their role extends beyond simple access in providing free internet and devices to digital help and digital literacy training. By acting as trusted community hubs that bridge the digital divide for underserved populations, their potential could be used more efficiently to build local capacity for digital equity. Based on the case study from Estonia, from an advanced e-country’s context, the current paper focuses on the under-researched issue of institutions as indispensable source for digital support. It first shows how rural community anchor institutions play a pivotal role in bridging the digital divide. Then it proposes for a conceptual change to start to think about anchor institutions by prioritising and resourcing their engagement with helping to digitalisation ‘micro assets’ in rural context.