European Year of Rail 2021. Connecting places and people

Editorial
Wiktor Szydarowski, ESPON EGTC

The way into the future
The semester of the Portuguese Presidency of the

Now is the time for territorial, smart and ambitious investments!
Elisa Ferreira Europe's response to the crisis is

Thematic dossier
A Long Term Vision for Rural Areas to turn changes into opportunities

A new pathway is emerging for the prosperous future of rural areas
Fatima Bacharel Andreea China Rural areas:

The EU cohesion policy needs a universal basic income
Nowadays, the environment is a priority in the

Rural areas are entitled to the EU's cohesion and crisis response
Rural areas not only represent the smallest building

The future of Europe will depend on how we deal with rural areas
Peter Schmidt Stefano Palmieri The EU enjoys incredible

CAP reform and a Green Deal: an unmissable opportunity to promote agroecological practices
Guillaume Cros The Occitanie region is

How to harness the potential of rural areas to m ake them suitable places for innovation opportunities?
' Eugenio Giani In her speech during

Which future do you want for rural areas?
Marion Eckardt Last year, the European LEADER

Taking action to spur growth in French rural areas: the rural agenda
Marie-Lorraine Dangeard The Territorial Agenda 2030 provides

Reinventing Scandinavian Mountains
Jan Edøy Erik Hagen Em pirical

Landscape transformation programme: An institutional innovation model
Miguel Freitas The new European forest strategy

Rural networking to build a Long Term Vision for Rural Areas
Enrique Nieto In early 2020, the President of

The pandemic may help us re-discover places that were left behind
João Ferrão is a research professor at the

Cit izens and territories should feel the im pact of NextGenerationEU funds
In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, Local

The macroregional strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Region: a common vision, a shared mission
Mathilde Konstantopoulou Following the end of the

Why we need new evidence to better address the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic
Nicolas Rossignol ESPON' s first attempt to

Older people’s interests in policymaking: a lesson from COVID-19?
Piera Petruzzi Member State governments have begun to

Development challenges for lake areas in the EU
Károly Fekete Éva Geletáné Varga

Leaping from a primary to a quaternary sector in a rural EU border area
Sandra Spule What are employment options for

Measuring the climate impact of spatial planning
Pauline Riordan Because of its broad reach,

Functional areas as emerging geographies: how to define and measure them
' Zintis Hermansons The understanding of different functional

Eco-clust er s as governance tools
Jacopo Riccardi Thijs Fikken Europe's urban-maritime

European Year of Rail 2021. Connecting places and people
Valeria Fedeli The year 2021 is the

Measuring digitalisation in regions and cities, matching the targets of the 2030 Digital Com pass
Anke Schuster Marek Bobiš The COVID-19 pandemic has

Driving and scaling-up innovation in cross-border digital healthcare from the demand side
Martin Gauk Angela Emidio The ESPON

Communicating Cohesion Policy on Planet Pandemia One year on
Image: Claudio Nichele Agnès Monfret Claudio Nichele Like

Communication in time of pandemics - INTERACT experience
Kevin Fulcher When COVID-19 arrived in Europe,

Interreg Europe communication during the COVID-19 pandemic
Petra Polaskova The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically

How to hold an international event when everybody is stuck in their homes?
Jenny Koutsomarkou Imagine the impact of the pandemic

Upcoming ESPON events Transnational Outreach
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, all events will

Territorial resilience: meaning and main implications for spatial planning
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across regions

Setting up the ESPON 2030 Program m e: heading towards the finish line
The last few months have been particularly intensive

Policy Brief on rural areas: More than just a publication
Fatima Bacharel Andreea China Since the

Outlook of the Slovenian presidency
Blanka Bartol TomaẐ Miklav Ḉ iḈ In