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 ten one-and-a-half-day peer-learning workshops organised in 2018 by the European Commission and the OECD in the framework of the project “Pilot Action on Regions in Industrial Transition: The Peer-learning Exercise”. The financial contributions and support from the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) are gratefully acknowledged.
The OECD Secretariat would particularly like to thank the participating regions of the peer-learning workshops, Cantabria (SP), Centre-Val de Loire (FR), East and North Finland (FI), Grand-Est (FR), Greater Manchester (UK), Hauts-de-France (FR), North Middle Sweden (SE), Piemonte (IT), Saxony (DE), Wallonia (BE), and two countries, Lithuania and Slovenia. Many of the examples and insights in this report come from the discussions, findings and conclusions derived from the peer-learning workshops.
Several experts and regional and country representatives contributed their perspectives to inform this report. The team would like to thank the following external experts for their contributions to the workshops: Ryan Glenn, Director of State-wide Initiatives, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Pennsylvania, U.S; Johanna Lundström, Chief Analyst, Regional Development, Strategy and Analysis, Region Syddanmark, Denmark; Cristina Oyón, Head of Strategic Initiatives, GRUPO SPRI TALDEA, Bilbao, Spain; Professor William Swan, Associate Dean Enterprise, School of the Built Environment, Salford University; and Michael Theben, Director General for Climate Protection, Ministry for Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy, North Rhine Westphalia, Germany. Within the OECD particular thanks goes to Jonathan Barr (CFE), David Bartolini (CFE), Enrico Botta (ENV), Mario Cervantes (STI), Enrique Garcilazo (CFE), Sylvain Giguere (CFE), Sandrine Kergroach (CFE), Lukas Kleine-Rueschkamp (CFE), Alexander Lembcke (CFE), Virginie Marchal (ENV), Alistair Nolan (STI), Jonathan Potter (CFE), Andres Sanabria (CFE), and Paolo Veneri (CFE). Inputs and comments from delegates of the Regional Development Policy Committee are also gratefully acknowledged.
The peer-learning workshops were co-ordinated in CFE by Maria Varinia Michalun and Debra Mountford and the final report was co-ordinated and drafted by Sandra Hannig, all under the supervision of Rüdiger Ahrend, Head of the Economic Analysis, Statistics and Multi-level Governance Section in CFE. Each chapter builds on in-house background papers as well as the workshop discussions. Maria Varinia Michalun provided input and edited the report. Eric Gonnard provided statistical input. The report benefited from valuable comments by Rüdiger Ahrend, Maria Varinia Michalun and Debra Mountford at the OECD, and Peter Berkowitz, Richard Deiss, Sander Haepperts, Laurent de Mercey, Denisa Perrin and Marek Przeor at the European Commission. The report was copy-edited by Eleonore Morena and prepared for publication by Francois Iglesias and Pilar Philip.