All RDAs across England are closing by March 2012
(see transition and closure section).
With our resources reducing steadily, this page has not been recently updated and the information below may not be current.
If in doubt, please contact us directly.
Territorial Co-operation
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From 01 July 2011, European programmes will be directly
managed by Central Government. Further
information is available on our funding pages.
What is Territorial Co-operation
As with the Convergence and Competitiveness objectives, the overarching aim
of Territorial Co-operation (TC) is:
- to further economic and social cohesion across the EU
- to reduce the gap between the development levels of the various
EU regions.
In particular for 2007-2013 the focus is on how the Cohesion
Policy can make a significant contribution to delivering the
overarching Lisbon and Gothenburg priorities, to ensure EU regions
have competitive, innovative and sustainable economies, and that
Europe as a whole can compete with the US, Japan and China.
TC focuses on supporting co-operation between regions in the
different member states. It is aimed at overcoming the physical
barriers of borders as potential obstacles to development between
regions, and enabling regions from different countries to find
solutions to common issues and challenges.
TC differs from Convergence and Competitiveness in the way it is
delivered: funding is available through a competitive tendering
process and projects are developed through partnerships between
countries.
What is the background to Territorial Co-operation?
The TC Objective replaces the INTERREG Community
Initiative (2000-2006) in the current EU programming period
(2007-2013), giving TC the same status as Convergence and
Competitiveness, as one of the three overarching objectives of EU
Cohesion Policy.
This is a significant change in approach, as it places greater
emphasis on "co-operation" in regional policy than during previous
programming periods.
What opportunities does this bring to the region?
The Territorial Cooperation programme offers the South West a
number of unique opportunities over its lifetime:
- to share best practice and establish benchmarks with other
member states
- to build up the region’s and South West RDA’s involvement with
key networks between EU countries, which will be important to set
in place for post-2013 when it is uncertain whether the South West
will benefit from mainstream programmes (such as Convergence and
Competitiveness)
- to give all parts of the region access to Structural Funds –
given the limited resources available under Competitiveness and the
Rural Development programmes
- to develop schemes unconstrained by our national border
- to help deliver certain aspects of regional strategies
including the Regional Economic Strategy (RES) e.g. with the
additional dimension of cooperation between EU countries.