The added value of transnational cooperation: Towards a new framework for evaluating learning and policy change

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of this article is to contribute to the analysis and conceptualization of one element among the variety of practices that shape the development of a new European spatial policy field, i.e. the process of transnational cooperation between local and regional actors within the framework of INTERREG programmes. INTERREG is the only European Union (EU) funding instrument which explicitly deals with territorial development and spatial planning and has often been presented as one of the key operational mechanisms for the application of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (Committee on Spatial Development - CSD, 1999). Although INTERREG programmes do not constitute a big share of the Structural Fund budget (only 2.5% of the total Structural Funds Budget for 2007 - 2013), territorial cooperation across national borders is expected to bring about a real European added value in pursuing the goal of territorial cohesion and balanced spatial development of the European territory. In the context of the mainstream Structural Funds, the European Commission defines 'added value' as 'value resulting from the Community assistance that is additional to that which would have been secured by national and regional authorities and the private sector' (Commission of the European Communities - CEC, 2001, in Mairate, 2006). The added value of transnational cooperation for European spatial planning can occur as a result of two processes: cooperation across borders can help is expected to tackle specific strategic spatial development issues at a new scale and in a better way than without cooperation, and solve spatial planning problems which were previously addressed in an inefficient way. A good illustration of this is cooperation in transnational river basins to improve the planning of land uses in flood-prone areas and tackle the management of flood risk. Such a process is relatively rare (Duumlhr & Nadin, this issue 2007). Secondly, cooperation across borders can help individual actors to improve their local/regional spatial development policies by learning from the 'good practices', innovative policies and technologies used by other partners in the transnational network. In that case added value is primarily of a local nature. If the sum of local impacts is considered, one may argue that a form of European added value emerges through the gradual 'emulation' between policies and practices leading to increased effectiveness and efficiency. In both cases, the (potential) added value of transnational cooperation for European spatial planning is a result of organizational and policy learning. Actors learn how to work at new scales and in new types of networks in order to address certain issues of transnational importance better, or they learn from other actors to address specific local or regional issues. In order to demonstrate the added value of transnational cooperation (or lack thereof) and to discuss the contribution of INTERREG to the 'Europeanization of spatial planning', researchers consequently have to shift the focus of their empirical and conceptual analyses towards the nature of transnational cooperation processes and the learning that occurs (or not) as a result. As argued by Dabinett (2006, p. 289), 'INTERREG may appropriately be seen as a transnational learning model that needs further exploration in the context of policy and institutional learning and communicative planning practices'. Whilst there has been much academic interest in the ESDP's influence on planning in EU member states, INTERREG programmes have been less researched to date, in spite of the significant growth in cooperation on spatial development issues across national borders involving thousands of professionals (Duumlhr & Nadin, this issue 2007) and the increase in knowledge exchanges within transnational expert networks of European planners at the level of cities (De Jong & Edelenbos, 2007). Existing research tends to suggest that INTERREG has contributed to the emergence of transnational spatial planning practices and the diffusion of certain spatial ideas across European regions (Janin Rivolin, 2003; Pedrazzini, 2005; Giannakourou, 2005; Dabinett & Richardson, 2005; Dabinett, 2006), thereby contributing to the 'Europeanization of spatial planning'. However, very few studies have actually proposed a concrete methodological approach to substantiate this claim with empirical evidence. This can be partly explained by the fact that evaluating the impact of INTERREG on domestic planning practices as well as assessing its European 'added value' is a difficult task. This article makes the following arguments: first, traditional understandings of 'policy transfer' provided by political science are not appropriate to conceptualize the specific processes of cooperation and learning at stake within INTERREG, although recent research on cognitive mechanisms of Europeanization offers a useful tool for the reconceptualization of such processes. Second, current evaluation methodologies used by both evaluation professionals and academic researchers to analyse the impact of Structural Funds programmes and Community Initiatives are inadequate to investigate processes of transnational cooperation and learning and the changes that may arise as a result. This dual challenge is explored in the first part of the article. The second part of the article then seeks to address the following questions: how to modify evaluation methodologies in order to be able to capture learning processes? How to reconceptualize the study of transnational cooperation in order to put 'learning' at the heart of analyses of 'policy impacts' and 'added value'? The article proposes the first elements of a conceptual and empirical framework for the evaluation of the cooperation and learning processes within transnational projects. At a more theoretical level, it is hoped that the article can contribute to the ongoing academic debates on new horizontal mechanisms of Europeanization, in particular in the spatial policy field. The article draws from the author's dual experience as a (previous) practitioner in project development within an INTERREG IIIB programme, later as an academic researcher performing evaluation work for INTERREG projects. This contribution focuses on the transnational cooperation strand of INTERREG (Strand B, formerly IIC), which specifically supports cooperation in spatial planning and territorial development at the scale of large transnational groupings of countries and regions. However, the issues discussed in the article can be of relevance to other programmes and forms of transboundary cooperation within the EU - under the new Territorial Cooperation Objective of EU Regional policy, the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, or the ESPON programme.