caENTI first scientific periodic report (March 2006 - February 2007)

In the first reporting period, the WP6 [TOOLS] aimed at defining the specifications of a CATALYSE Toolkit, from the CATALYSE method that has been used for several years by most of the caENTI participants in multi-sector observatories that use similar tools but gather different information contents.

The CATALYSE method suggests three tools that allow confronting three information kinds:

1. A multi-sector diagnosis and evaluation guide to gather individual information about people’s needs, so as to define and measure needs profiles.
2. A services repertory to list the existing services on the territory that aim at satisfying the people’s needs and the community groups.
3. A territorial information system (TIS) that integrates socio-economic territorial indicators provided by specialized statistic institutions.

Measuring and defining needs and services profiles and then globally and territorially confronting them allow designing services that can satisfy the needs and evaluate the organizations and actions providing these services at the individual and territorial levels.

The free and friendly software PRAGMA, ANACONDA, NUAGE and SITRA are used for quantitative, qualitative and spatial data analysis to measure and compare the importance and localization of needs and services and their main profiles in the territorial community.

The CATALYSE diagnoses, evaluations or observations, are generally initiated by an actors' multi-sector partnership, to better know the individual and collective needs and to act together more efficiently. An operational actors group selects the guide questions, then coherently defines the repertory information and the territorial indicators. A technical and communication team, the “observatory”, processes and animates the data analysis. The operational group ranks the needs profiles. Ad hoc workshops deepen the needs analysis and evaluate services, so as to create joint projects of new or reestablished services. As regards the project teams, they draft projects.

During the first period, the WP6 defined contents specifications of a CATALYSE Toolkit from experiences of the caENTI observatories. It did not aim at doing a turn-key product, but at synthesising the experiences in a touchstone.

• It compared the diagnosis and evaluation guides that are used by the caENTI participants to present a European guide, in conformity with the existing European standards.
• It detailed the questions and modalities meanings of this guide.
• It offered an online services repertory, with corresponding information.
• It started selecting territorial indicators from socio-economic European indicators. It should achieve this selection with European, national, and possibly regional, indicators that are available at the local level.

The WP6 progressed much with the data processing tools.

• It wrote conceptual, methodological and technical specifications for PRAGMA. It implemented a first “collect” version, fined down to data collecting functions, that has allowed starting an experimentation of the CATALYSE Toolkit with the ACCEM Spanish “migrants” guide, since May 2006. It started computing the specifications for the PRAGMA multi-platform version.
• It defined the technical specifications for the integration of the quantitative and qualitative data analysis software (PRAGMA, ANACONDA and NUAGE).
• It wrote the technical and computing specifications for a free online repertory and a Territorial Information System. It progressed much in advance on the planned work, by designing a Territorial Intelligence Community System.

The WP6 also compares the practices and uses of the caENTI observatories concerning the contents and tools, in order to plan joint recommendations.

• It defined the data analysis and data processing protocols for the European guide.
• It compared five observatories and three observation mechanisms, so as to draw recommendations to use the CATALYSE method in a development partnership.

The WP6 will coordinate the CATALYSE Toolkit execution, thanks to the Spanish experimentation. The TICS concept lays the basis of the future periods work, because it integrates the data analysis software, the spatial analysis functions, the data processing protocols, the external documents, the produced documents, the editorial workflow and the community and development partnership uses.

The WP4 [METHODS] aims at improving the dissemination of the spatial analysis and territorial information processing methods and tools within the HSS, and at increasing the territorial information use. These objectives are divided into five scientific coordination activities that correspond to the five WP4 coordination groups.

To answer the question “Which generic methods used by social sciences to study the territories can provide tools to help territorial actors better managing their territories?” the WP4M [Methods] coordination group worked about generic methods of wide applicability. The WP4M firstly studied three kinds of methods: spatial frameworks where space is divided into discreet spatial units, simulation of the territories spatial dynamics and GIS.

During the next period, the WP4M will complete the information management thanks to a GIS and then explore the spatial interpolation methods, in order to generalize spatial data, and work on a meta-method: the territories observation.

The WP4I [Information] identified the main sources of territorial information that are available for the researchers in Europe, at the European, national, regional and local levels.

It studied the statistical information that can be gathered on European and national Internet websites, and selected the indicators and themes that can be used within the HSS and by the caENTI actors. For each country, it searched the lower spatial level for which the indicator is available and the most recent data. It evaluated the comparisons possibilities.

The next research actions will include the identification of the indicators use conditions, the collection of metadata information and the comparison with the UN sustainable development indicators and the Agenda 21 contextual indicators.

The WP4P [Project] is linked to the evaluation of the projects that were supported by the European Commission (EC) and belong to the territorial intelligence field. It also searched the relevant information the General Directions (GDs) of the EC have concerning territorial intelligence.

By crossing the research modes and the sources with key-words of territorial intelligence, the WP4P selected 45 European research and action projects. As regards the relevant information, it worked with the WP4I on the information that is published on the official websites.

The WP4P will contact the selected projects responsibles soon, to choose the most relevant ones, in order to invite them with the CAENTI actions responsibles to a comparative seminar. It will also ask the GDs of the EC to identify the relevant information they have about territorial intelligence which could complete the Internet inventory made by the WP4I.

The WP4T [Territory] compared the different disciplinary approaches of territory and studied the territory specification process (“territorialisation” in French). It identified five key-elements concerning the territory: it is a resource set; it is a "construction"; it looks towards future; it can produce specific "territory effects". On a territory, tensions between local and global dynamics produce multiple and interactive networks.

It will now finish the pluri-disciplinary comparative research action, by increasing the connections between space and human community. To do so, it will use the appropriation, feed-back, project, identity and patrimony concepts, in order to present in HUELVA an operational inter-disciplinary definition that will be relevant for sustainable development.

The WP4C [Competitiveness] aims at identifying the factors of the territories competitiveness and the most relevant indicators of the territories competitiveness.

It defined and studied the competitiveness factors that influence the regions development: economic structure, innovation, accessibility (physical-infrastructural accessibility and accessibility to ICT), qualified human resources, social factors and cultural and natural environment.

It already started evaluating indicators of the territories competitiveness and some research actions in Hungary and it will continue in 2007.

The coordination groups of the work package 4 started drafting states-of-the-art and inventories about the multi-disciplinary approach of the territory concept, the generic methods used to study and manage the territory, the territorial information available on Internet for researchers and actors in Europe, the factors and indicators of the territories competitiveness and the European projects that belong to the territorial intelligence field.

The WP5 [GOVERNANCE] main commitment is the debate about the ethical and methodological principles which should be respected by the research protocols of human and social sciences, in order their results favour the governance of territorial sustainable development.

During this first period, the WP5 decided to perform an analysis of the caENTI members research experience and, on the basis of this experience results assessment to debate about the principles that inspire the practices of the research activity so that it will genuinely contribute to the governance development. Based on a comparative analysis of the six universities catalogues of experiences, the report: “Application of the sustainable development governance principles to the territorial research-action” is thinking on the application of the sustainable development governance principles to territorial research-action.

In the decentralising processes of the State power, the main challenge that is faced by the territorial governance architects is to make a complete use of all the potentialities the present society offers. Territorial governance is presented with the challenge of realizing that “territorial engineering” takes advantage of and effectively stimulates the “organisational capacity of the whole social organisation”, in order to manage providing appropriate answers to the citizens’ democratically expressed needs.

All the institutional complexity involved in the processes of power spaces reconfiguration was expressly recognised by the European Union in 2001 with the publication of White Paper on European Governance . The WP5 started drawing up a normative framework relating to research applied to economically, socially and environmentally territorial sustainable development. The WP5 wants to put this principle in practice, in connection with the fulfilment of the principles which refer to good governance. It raises the question of the person who should produce, interpret and disseminate the knowledge and also of the way it has to do it, in order to design and democratically manage sustainable development policies.

By articulating the concepts of territorial governance and territorial intelligence, the WP5 formulated a series of principles which should be respected by the research-action applied protocols of territorial development, so as the research processes and results allow promoting a good governance in a knowledge-based society: transformation, multi-dimensionality, partnership, participation, sustainability, transparency, co-responsibility, co-evaluation and co-learning.

During the next period, the WP5 will draft the European quality letter of research-action favouring the territorial governance of sustainable development.

The WP3 [PORTAL] objective is to contribute to the visibility and dissemination of all the CAENTI activities and results, towards the greatest number. The first works and results of the network are already published on this territorial intelligence portal.

The WP3 also provides the caENTI with a protected Extranet (Intra-consortium website) and a cooperative workspace (CooSpace) that answer one of the activity integration objectives and allow working daily together between two meetings.

To meet the organization needs of the international conferences, the WP3 integrated a conference management software. Advertisement and call for papers were published, an online diffusion of the international conference in Alba Iulia was organised and the conference acts were also published on the portal.

The territorial intelligence portal restructuring implied a deep work during the latest months. At the end of February 2007, an improved version of the Intra-consortium will be launched. A new version of the Internet portal, accompanied by many services, will be put online for the scientific community and the general public, in September 2007.

The WP2 [CONFERENCE] organised the International Conference of Territorial Intelligence, which is the caENTI consortium major event, in terms of integration and joint action visibility.

The Scientific Committee and the Organisational Committee were defined in the consortium agreement.

The WP2 published the advertisement and call for papers of the Conference of ALBA IULIA (Romania) at the end of March 2006. This conference was organized by the University “1er Decembrie 1918” on the theme “Region, Identity and Sustainable development” in September 2006. The Acts include 11 papers on the CAENTI activities and 26 submitted papers.

At the end of January 2007, the WP2 published the advertisement and call for papers for the next conference that will take place in HUELVA in October 2007 on the theme “Territorial intelligence and governance”.

The WP1 [MANAGEMENT] managed the caENTI consortium. Eight meetings took place during the project first year. During the first one, the kick-off meeting, three day-to-day management structures were set up: the Project Secretariat, the Steering Committee and the Innovation and Dissemination Manager. At the same period, three Internet-based instruments were implemented: an Internet portal, CooSpace and an Intra-consortium. Thanks to these six facilitators, the results of the first caENTI year were important, as regards the management and the research activities. The consortium composition has remained unchanged, except the Innovation and Dissemination Manager function, which responsible is being replaced.

During the caENTI first period, it reached its financial objectives. Indeed, the total engaged efforts amounted to 147,95 persons/months. It is more than 30 units superior to the foreseen involvement. As regards the budget, the consortium spent 98,58% of the planned one for this period. The main costs were manpower, and then travel. The consortium financial performances should be underlined. Nevertheless, we realized that it is indispensable we make adjustments in the distribution of the EC contribution within the consortium, to better answer each partner needs.