Nicola Francesco Dotti

• PhD in Territorial Economics and Policy
• Independent

The European Union (EU), especially in the context of Cohesion Policy (CP), has played a crucial role in developing and promoting policy evaluation practices across its Member States. Evaluation systems across the Member States have been established to assess CP investments. Remarkably, the use of evaluation research and its contribution to stimula...

This paper analyses how EU regions have aligned their innovation and policy endeavours to tackle exposure to the effects of Climate Change at regional level. Scholars hailed the need to orienting efforts and resources to tackle societal challenges. However, we have little empirical evidence on the alignment of R&I ecosystems and policy endeavours t...

This concluding chapter aims to summarise lessons learned and key messages of the multidisciplinary discussion of the EU Cohesion Policy. This volume discussed the disciplinary genealogies of this policy, reflected on its rationale, implementation, outcomes and evaluation from multiple angles. Four fundamental lessons are identified: CP is a strate...

This engaging and topical book comprehensively explores the complexities surrounding the EU Cohesion Policy, which has been addressing regional and urban development across Europe since the 1980s. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it not only considers the goals of this long-term investment policy, which is to reduce territorial disparities be...

The paper provides quantitative evidence on the geography of regional readiness to tackle climate change using data from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain. Following Cappellano et al. (2022), we estimate a composite indicator that reports the situation of regions in these countries between 2009 and 2020 regarding the directionality of their...

This report aims to identify activities for science-informed policy making, to map those funded and performed by Science Europe Member Organisations, and suggests some recommendations. It is based on a survey held among Science Europe Member Organisations and a subsequent focus group discussion.

Despite the importance of Cohesion Policy in reducing regional disparities and stimulating economic growth across member states, it has been exposed to compliance challenges. These challenges are evidenced by a higher number of errors and irregularities against other areas of the European Union’s budgetary expenditure. Especially fraudulent irregul...

The climate crisis and digitalisation are complex societal challenges requiring science-based knowledge to address. While, interdisciplinarity is a long-standing challenge, together with related notions such as trans- and cross-disciplinarity, which Science Europe addressed in 2018 (see the “’Symposium Report on Interdisciplinarity”). Interdiscipli...

The discussion on the ‘societal impact of university research’ has emerged within the recent decade with different utilisation from the British REF impact stories to the EU Framework Programmes’ criteria. The fundamental idea is that (university) research should contribute to addressing societal challenges, such as climate change, and not just purs...

The growing interest in addressing societal challenges is changing research and innovation policy dynamics. However, a challenge-oriented approach requires specific public sector capacities to coordinate and provide directionality, while having an innovation ecosystem with sufficient scientific and technological capabilities to address the grand so...

On 8 November 2021, at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), CESAER, the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN), Science Europe and the University of Strathclyde launched a joint call for collective global action to tackle climate change by reducing and transitioning to Net�Zero emissions. The four founding organisations share a...

The EU Cohesion Policy was observed to be marked by financial compliance problems due to a relatively high level of irregularities. This problem brings into question the issue of how to prevent such infringements of the rules applicable to EU expenditure. Against this backdrop, this article investigates how Poland worked to prevent irregularities d...

Brussels is known worldwide for hosting (most of) the European institutions as well as several other international organisations like North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Besides the symbolic political value, their presence has an economic impact because of their administrative activities and staff remunerations. Estimating the economic impac...

RSA Research Network on Cohesion Policy [#CPnet] 2 call for presentations for next two online workshops on: 1) Theoretical reflections on EU Cohesion Policy, 22-23 March; 2) The urban dimensions of EU Cohesion Policy, 19-20 May. Please find below more information on the topics, keynote speakers and organisations.

Since the 1980s, there has been a trend for businesses and public administrations to focus on their core activities, outsourcing tasks such as IT, security, catering and cleaning services. However, in recent years, many organisations have been reversing the trend by insourcing, or “backsourcing”, some of these activities. The aim of this article is...

Since the 1980s, there has been a trend for businesses and public administrations to focus on their core activities, outsourcing tasks such as IT, security, catering and cleaning services. However, in recent years, many organisations have been reversing the trend by insourcing, or “backsourcing”, some of these activities. The aim of this article is...

Since the 1980s, there has been a trend for businesses and public administrations to focus on their core activities, outsourcing tasks such as IT, security, catering and cleaning services. However, in recent years, many organisations have been reversing the trend by insourcing, or “backsourcing”, some of these activities. The aim of this article is...

The aim of this edited volume is to understand the role of 'managed' or 'organized' clusters in the transitions towards sustainability. In contrast to 'traditional' approaches in cluster studies, we aim to move forward from the perspective on clusters as 'geographic concentrations' of firms, to seeing clusters as organizations of organizations, or...

The paper proposes a policy evaluation approach to estimate the local multiplier effect of (public) R&I expenditures in the context of regional innovation systems (RIS). Starting from input-output tables and recent improvements in local multipliers, the proposed approach tracks all economic flows generated by the initial public R&I expenditures, di...

The paper proposes a policy evaluation approach to estimate the local multiplier effect of (public) R&I expenditures in the context of regional innovation systems (RIS). Starting from input-output tables and recent improvements in local multipliers, the proposed approach tracks all economic flows generated by the initial public R&I expenditures, di...

The nexus between policy change and learning has attracted an extensive theoretical debate, since the seminal Hall’s typology of orders of change. Defined as the capacity to act collectively for policy-making, policy knowledge is crucial because actors have to know how to cooperate sharing a common understanding of the policy issue at stake. This c...

There is a wide body of research that emphasises the importance of institutions for effective regional development. Part of this research has focused specifically on the role of administrative capacity as a factor for the effectiveness of ESIF programmes and concluded that effectiveness is conditional on the ability of national, regional and local...

This book provides theories, experiences, reflections and future directions for social scientists who wish to engage with policy-oriented research in cities and regions. The ‘policy learning’ perspective is comprehensively discussed, focusing on actors promoting ‘policy knowledge’ and interaction among different stakeholders. The book also aims to...

Fostering innovation to achieve the goals of sustainable development agenda has been the aim of a growing number of governance strategies implemented by both public and private sector actors. Traditionally, the question of who is best fit to govern has been addressed through the hierarchy-market-network trichotomy, however, such an approach might b...

The construction of a large metropolitan infrastructure, like other megaprojects, requires advanced technical expertise, capacity to manage complex procedures and planning processes as well as capacity to deal with conflicting interests. For the case of megaprojects, overestimation of benefits and underestimation of costs and risks is a common prob...

The EU initiative for "Smart Specialisation Strategies" (S3) is animating the policy debate thanks to an interesting and innovative approach. However, this rapid success has left some mismatches from theory to practice that have emerged after the first round of implementation, and related considerations. To reflect on the S3 notion, we discuss the...

Knowledge brokers have emerged as a new type of actors shaping scientific production, influencing science–policy relationships, and thereby contributing to regional competitiveness. Yet, the spatial dimension of these knowledge brokers has received little attention. Using Framework Programme participations in European cities, we analyse and discuss...

While R&D activities are known for being unevenly distributed across space, how EU policy contributed to their regional dynamics is less explored. Since the 1980s, the EU Framework Programmes (FP) have promoted and supported transnational R&D projects through open and highly competitive calls for funding driven by 'scientific excellence' regardless...

Knowledge plays an essential key role in the policymaking process for interpreting the available information, defining policy issues at stake and evaluating possible solutions – especially in complex policy issues like water management. However, for city-regions, knowledge is often a scarce resource due to the small size of the policy community, co...

How to build the local capacity to address grand societal challenges such as climate change, ageing and unemployment? While routine policymaking is already challenging, addressing complex challenges requires also advanced knowledge, in terms of information on complex phenomena, models to interpret this information and tools that can be implemented....

In 2015, the Regional Studies Association (RSA) celebrated 50 years and one of the keywords of this (hi)story is “impactful”. Having an impact requires to be able to bring research-based knowledge to policymakers moving out of the academic ‘Ivory Tower’ and engaging in policy debate, thus acknowledging the societal role of research. Yet, this requi...

Lo sviluppo delle aree metropolitane richiede conoscenze complesse per progettare e implementare le politiche pubbliche. L’acquisizione di queste conoscenze, l’adattamento ai diversi contesti e la capacità di far fronte alle necessità emergenti sono elementi strategici per lo sviluppo territoriale, identificando una nuova area di “governance” orien...

While knowledge is intangible, research and development (R&D) activities are known for being unevenly distributed across space. Since the 1980s, cross-national knowledge flows have dramatically increased, and the EU has played a major role in this field with policies such as the Framework Programmes (FP). In this perspective, the “European Research...

Brussels-Europe in Figures 2016: international organisations contribute 121,000 jobs to the Brussels-Capital Region European institutions and other international organisations in the Brussels-Capital Region have created 121,000 jobs, 81,000 of them directly and 40,000 indirectly. This was the finding of a new publication "Brussels-Europe in Figures...

Regional Innovation Systems are known for their capacity to create a virtuous cycle of cooperation across knowledge centres, policymakers and economic actors. The so-called ‘Triple Helix’ aims to promote technological innovation and market-oriented competitiveness. Is research able to support also policymaking? In a local environment where knowledg...

For many decades, intra-national variations in the size of the shadow economy have been studied using survey methods using interviews with respondents in different locality-types (e.g., Kesteloot and Meert, 1999; Williams, 2004). This is in stark contrast to the study of cross-national variations where indirect measurement methods using proxy indic...

The aim of this paper is to map the spatial variations in the size of the shadow economy within Brussels. Reporting data provided by the National Bank of Belgium on the deposit of high denomination banknotes across bank branches in the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, the finding is that the shadow economy is concentrated in wealth...

While EU regional policy has the ambitious objective of supporting lagging regions and promoting inter-regional convergence, its impact is dependent on the ability of regional policymakers to secure and use EU funding to meet the region's needs. This paper aims to show under which conditions politics has a defining influence on the distribution, al...

In the current debate about the economic crisis affecting Europe, limited attention has been devoted to regional aspects. The national dimension has attracted most of the interest of the political debate, while the intra-national effects of the crisis have been neglected. While there are major claims for a more “European Union (EU)-driven” interven...

What is the place of Brussels in the European research geography? Brussels is commonly recognised as the EU capital, but mainly for its political and administrative functions. As research is fundamental in a ‘knowledge-based economy’, this paper shows the performance of Brussels in terms of participation in EU R&D projects. Findings show a double r...

What is the place of Brussels in the European research geography? Brussels is commonly recognised as the EU capital, but mainly for its political and administrative functions. As research is fundamental in a “knowledge-based economy”, this paper shows the performance of Brussels in terms of participation in EU R&D projects. Findings show a double r...

What is the place of Brussels in the European research geography? Brussels is commonly recognised as the EU capital, but mainly for its political and administrative functions. As research is fundamental in a “knowledge-based economy”, this paper shows the performance of Brussels in terms of participation in EU R&D projects. Findings show a double r...

In the knowledge era, the importance of highly-qualified human capital has been widely recognized as a key factor for local economic development, especially for those areas specialized in science and technology (S&T). Assuming a regional perspective, the capacity to attract this kind of people is both a sign of territorial competitiveness and a way...

The EU Framework Programme (FP) is by far the most important European intervention for research and technological development (RTD). While this policy has been repeatedly reformed, the FP has also shaped European research since 1984. The largest part of the FP aims to promote transnational RTD projects granting funds for ‘excellent research’ (the s...

FOREWORD This report is a work in progress. It provides a review of the literature on the above mentioned topics that does not pretend to be exhaustive. This report is part of a broader project on the European research geography and territorial policy innovation in Brussels. More information are available on the website www.greatpi.eu. The report i...

Among the many roles universities can perform in regional development, this paper focuses on a less traditional one: universities can act as an instrument for brain gain, allowing regions to attract smart people who often stay after graduation. Thus, universities can also exacerbate the capability of regions with dynamic economies to attract smart...

In order to promote “cohesion, competitiveness and cooperation” across Europe, the EU has established a common regional policy to support underdeveloped territories. This EU regional policy required to set up a very complex mechanism to implement such a huge effort to coordinate many interventions across highly differentiated territories. However,...