This report was produced by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director. It is part of the Programme of Work of the OECD’s Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC).
The report is the outcome of six high-level expert workshops organised in 2023 by the OECD and the European Commission (EC) at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, within the framework of the Place-Based Policies for the Future project. The financial contribution from the EC’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) and its support are gratefully acknowledged.
The OECD Secretariat would particularly like to thank Peter Berkowitz, Director Policy, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission, for initiating this project, and the experts who wrote the background papers for each workshop: Philip McCann, Jens Suedekum, Albert Solé-Ollé, Anne Green, Josefina Syssner, Max Nathan, Alessandra Faggian and Giulia Urso, Felix Creutzig, Andrew Beer, Sarah Giest, Amy Glasmeier, and Peter Berkowitz, Pasquale D’Apice, Hélène Lauerière, Tillmann Heidelk, Enrico Pesaresi, Philippe Monfort and John Walsh. The papers are available online. Thanks are also extended to the participants of the six workshops, who contributed important perspectives to this report.
The workshops and final publication were co‑ordinated by Courtenay Wheeler (CFE/RDG) and Andrés Fuentes (CFE/EDS), under the joint supervision of Dorothée Allain-Dupré, Head of Regional Development and Multi-level Governance Division of CFE and Rudiger Ahrend, Head of the Economic Analysis and Statistics Division of CFE. The report builds on the background papers prepared by the experts, as well as discussions in the workshops. The chapters were prepared collectively by Courtenay Wheeler (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), Michael Flood (Chapters 2 and 6), Caroline Gentet-Raskopf (Chapters 4 and 7), Matteo Schleicher (Chapter 5), Isabelle Chatry (Chapter 6) and Maria Varinia Michalun (Chapter 6), all from CFE. Important contributions were made by Alison Weingarden (Chapters 2 and 5), Andrés Fuentes Hutfilter (Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7), Justin Chen (Chapters 1 and 2), Miquel Vidal-Bover (Chapter 2, 3 and 6), Jose Enrique Garcilazo (Chapters 1 and 2) and Petra Bayerova (Chapters 4, 5 and 7). Valuable comments were provided by RDPC Delegates, Nadim Ahmad, Antti Moisio, Ana Moreno Monroy, Joaquim Oliveira Martins and DG REGIO.
Thanks are also due to Roxana Glavanov and Jack Waters from CFE for guiding preparation of the final publication.
This final publication was approved by the Regional Development Policy Committee through a written procedure on 30 August 2024 (CFE/RDPC(2024)8/REV1).