Thursday, September the 21st 2006 - CAENTI day (GMT +3)

10.45-12.30: Invited conferences “Region, identity and sustainable development”

• Is region the most appropriate space to think sustainable development? A framework for research and implementation. Philippe Dumas, Professor Sciences of information-communication, Director I3m Laboratory Université du Sud.
  Whatever the challenge is for a rational observer, European regions and Regionalism have become common concerns in Europe for the last thirty years in the realm of European Union, not to speak of centuries in some European states.
  Sustainable development is another controversial notion although it is largely used and has been introduced since the late eighties in European glossary.
  In the line of the Caenti Alba Iulia conference program, the aim of this communication is to relate together those two concepts –region and sustainable development- with that of territorial intelligence.
  In a world that continuously witnesses the disasters of state imperialism and aggressive competition, territorial intelligence dictates that regions should not behave and/or be considered as mini-states, i.e. territorial or sociocultural entities that establish their legitimacy on zero sum antagonisms. It is our view that the permanence of regions in the history and around the world is a proof that (a) region has a profound popular meaning, and (b) that a fresh conception of regional governance is a chance for the implementation of sustainable development.
  As a provisional conclusion to these reflections, we suggest some guidelines of action for a group of benevolent people looking to implement a more friendly world on the basis of a regional leverage.

• Construction of regional identity and innovation. Laura GARCIA VICTORIA, Scientific director of the European network of Numerical cities, responsible for the External relations of the European Institute of Ethics and Sustainable Development.
  The experience of the European Network of Digital Cities (http://www.villesnumeriques.org) shows how much the development of a regional identity appears - since the end of the last century - to be a necessary condition not only to sustainable development but also and above all to the setting up of innovative strategies. Today, we all know that a real sustainable development policy is mostly a process to support innovation. This binomial identity/innovation is based on the observation - observation that is well established by the studies of the network -that the geographical and socio-cultural proximity, hence the existence of shared cognitive and behavioural codes, shapes a certain comparative advantage to the genesis of an environment prone to innovation, essentially in the form of relational capital. The rigorous construction and management of the territorial identity hence appears to be essential, notably through the feeling of belonging and the cohesion in terms of social capital that they foster. The programs of the cities and territories of knowledge on which we had an eye on are now developed by a number of local communities, which is the best illustration of such processes.

• The environmental information system in Romania: an institutional and behavioural approach. Daniela-Luminita CONSTANTIN, Constantin MITRUT, Bucarest Academy of Economic Studies.
  When the environmental issues are addressed in sustainability, human security terms the information demand is getting more complex, emphasising the need to integrate environmental, economic and socio-cultural information. This paper proposes an insight into the data and indicator issues on environment and human security in Romania from an institutional perspective. The environmental information system has been critically assessed in terms of content, information flows and further developments related to human security issues. The data reliability at various territorial levels of data collecting, processing and transmitting has been also analysed in this context. A special emphasis has been put on the actors involved in employing the environmental information for strategy and policy elaboration and implementation, management and administration as well as for scientific research, environmental education and public participation purposes. A typology of these actors from organisational viewpoint has been proposed and analysed, pointing out the need of enhancing the networking effects at both national and international level.
  
  

14.00-18.00: CAENTI workshops 4 - Fundamental methods

• 14.00-14.20: Orientations of WP4 Fundamental methods. Csilla FILO, Université de Pecs.
  The WP4 activities should direct towards two main objectives that will influence the CAENTI activities during the next months.
  - Which are the generic methods in Territorial Intelligence? This questioning transcends the strict framework of social sciences.
  - How to improve the diffusion of these methods within social sciences?
  These questions refer to the training of persons who work in the social field and to the development of inter-relations between researchers and social actors.
  The presentation emphasizes the works that were led during preliminary seminars.
  

• 14.20-14.40: (WP4M) – Methods and generic tools to study territory and territorial information. Serge ORMAUX, Director of ThéMA laboratory, Université de Franche-Comté.
  The author will make a brief presentation of the methods and generic tools that are used by the researchers in social sciences to study territories. This state of art will be discussed in the prospect of the WP4M report that will be written on this theme in December 2006.
  The main kinds of methods that are used are evoked, and there are links with the answers of the survey which was made with the members of the WP4M.
  At the end, we shall answer the following questions:
  -Which methods are used, in which disciplines and in which laboratories?
  - Which methods can be used to elaborate tools for territorial actors?
  We will genuinely answer these questions at the end of the second year of the CAENTI project, but we must already take stock on these practices.

• 14.40-15.00: (WP4I) – Territorial information, themes, indicators and sources. Di CHEN, Guénaël DEVILLET, Director of the SEGEFA, Université de Liège.
  WP4I is in charge of a comparative inventory of territorial information available on Internet and sources in Europe. The first step of our work is to establish which themes and indicators are needed within the social sciences and humanities, and parallel to this, we have to consider what indicators are actually available on Internet. In this context, a research and analysis over European territorial observatories, international and national statistical sources have been led. The difficulties that appeared during our researches are underlined.

• 15.00-15.20: (WP4P) – Evaluation of the projects about territorial intelligence that are funded by the European Commission, Jean-Jacques GIRARDOT, Université de Franche-Comté.
  The WP4P working group consists in valuating projects that are supported by the European Commission and that are linked to territorial intelligence.
  A first task consisted in identifying the projects which are funded by the European Union and that can be considered as belonging to the territorial intelligence field.
  A first group of keywords is suggested to select them: territory, development, etc. The first selection essentially underlines projects that are linked to governance.
  Then the projects are shared to valuate them and make a state-of-art.
  The objective for 2007 is to organize a seminar that will gather the projects leaders of the most relevant projects about territorial action and the CAENTI territorial actors to deepen the principles and the practice of territorial intelligence with them.
  The identification of the information that the GD owns and that is relevant for territorial intelligence will be made in collaboration with the WP4I group that leads research activities about territorial information (WP4I).
  

• 15.20-15.40: (WP4T) – Territory and process of site specification. Present state of the CAENTI thought about territory. Pierre CHAMPOLLION, Observatory of Rural School, Universita di Salerno.
  This presentation aims at summing up the present state of the scientific thought about territory, territoriality and process of site specification. In this way, it uses recent scientific works which were led between 2004 and 2006 by the REIT and the CAENTI in Pècs (HU, 2004), Liège (BE, 2005) and Aix-en-Provence (FR, 2005 & 2006). From different disciplinary approaches, as from main fundamental questions, a first interdisciplinary definition can be suggested. Territories refer to “places, that are not obligatory adjacent, but that are networked, fitted together into changing scales, productive of meaning and identities” (CHAMPOLLION & POIREY, 2004). So “there is no territory, included immaterial one, without collective projection of its actors towards a common structuring future, which generates identity and symbolic” (CHAMPOLLION & PIPONNIER, 2005).

• 15.40-16.00: (WP4C) – Territories competitiveness indicators. Csilla FILO, University of Pecs.
  To survey, analyse and adequately develop the human potential of the region is a priority of the knowledge intensive development model. When analysing regional competitiveness, the interrelated development opportunities of cognitive society and economy shall be considered, and the multidimensional survey of society and economy should be its starting point. To reveal the development potentials of a given territory, we need to determine the measurement units relating to the processes we are observing. This unit cannot be but the competitiveness of each area.
  Factors of competitiveness: Economic structure, Innovation, Accessibility, Qualified human resources.