T33 at the Regional Studies Association Annual Conference 2025 in Porto

Scritto da Alessandro Valenza
Pubblicazione 21 May 2025

From 6 to 9 May 2025, t33 took part in the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Annual Conference in Porto, Portugal. An important event bringing together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in regional development. This conference welcomed 840 participants from 57 countries. Our team presented three papers based on recent work for EU institutions, contributing to debates on the future of EU policies and the role of local and regional authorities (LRAs).
The conference was divided in 3 days opened by a thematic opening session in plenary:

• Navigating regional transformation
• The future of regional policy
• Knowledge for regional transformation

We heard many interesting contributions during the sessions, including from Elisa Ferreira (European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms 2019-2024), who expressed concerns about the future of Cohesion Policy, pointing to political resistance, unanimity voting, and budget constraints. She emphasised the importance of preserving its core principles, such as adequate funding, place-based and bottom-up approaches, proportionality, coherence, and strong governance. Renata Calak (Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy, Poland) highlighted Poland’s key regional challenges – including disparities, low competitiveness, and limited institutional capacity – and called for a new model of integrated regional policy based on multilevel governance, better coordination, and tailored, results-oriented investments.
During the first day of conference, the t33 delegation (Alessandro Valenza, Michele Alessandrini, Clarissa Amichetti and Arianna Mori) shared findings from recent evaluations and policy studies conducted for European institutions. Our presentations focused on how recent shifts in EU policy design and implementation frameworks affect multilevel governance, regional autonomy, and administrative capacities:

1) Re-centralisation in EU Policies: Implications for Local and Regional Authorities and place-based policy design: this paper explores how the shift in delivery mechanisms in Cohesion policy – inspired by the RRF model – may risk undermining not only financial allocations to LRAs, but also their autonomy and the foundations of multilevel governance in the EU.

2) Opportunities and challenges in adopting performance-based approaches for Cohesion policy: lessons from initial experiences: while Financing Not Linked to Costs (FNLC) under Cohesion policy can enhance efficiency and effectiveness, the paper argues that successful implementation goes far beyond technicalities – it requires major investments in programming and risk management capacities.

3) The evolution of the capacity building paradigm in EU regional policy: insights for European regional and local authorities beyond cohesion policy: this paper analyses how capacity-building support is changing, while retaining its multilevel and inclusive nature. Insights are relevant not only for Cohesion policy but for EU support to regional and local authorities more broadly.
 

These contributions come at an important moment for EU policymaking, as discussions on the future of Cohesion Policy are currently ongoing. Strengthening the role of LRAs, focusing on policy results, and investing in administrative capacity will be essential to ensuring that EU policies remain effective, inclusive, and territorially balanced.

We are grateful to the Regional Studies Association for hosting such a dynamic and insightful conference.

For more information about our EU policy work or to access our latest publications, visit https://www.t33.it/en/progetti.html .