As regiões menos desenvolvidas requerem novas formas de conceber e implementar políticas para a competitividade e coesão territorial num contexto de transições (digital e verde).

The project objectives are based on 3 central questions: 1. Why are certain regions of Portugal trapped, caught in a development trap and/or remain lagging regions? 2. How can we build a differentiated regional development strategy to unlock these regions? 3. How can we mobilise actors? What governance structures should be built? What differentiated territorial policies should be co-created? To answer 3 research questions, the project will develop a systemic methodology that will provide a critical interpretation of the country's economic and territorial reality, and a collaborative process based on a research agenda that will contribute to a new agenda for action. The project assumes that: - We need to develop a more open and agile way of designing and implementing policies to respond more effectively to the complex problems and emerging challenges at different scales. - We need to strengthen knowledge and stimulate more transformative governance processes. A Transformative change is based on new knowledge and new ways of thinking. It involves changes in visions, discourses and practices, approaches, and instruments, with a view to producing alternatives for solving problems and unleashing more competitive and more equitable forms of development that are more committed to cohesion. We need to galvanise more collaborative, more informed and longer processes. We need to learn to trust, collaborate and co-construct. The project therefore aims to stimulate co-creative initiatives as a way of contributing to reflection on innovation and transformation, and on the need to intensify territorial cooperation. The project's ambition is to trigger transformative processes, focusing on structural problems in Portuguese society and in the north region. To this end, it has set ambitious goals, framed by the state of the art, but focusing on a scientific strategy that will be linked to the construction of a political strategy. In this way, science is integrated into the governance system (bottom up), positioning itself as a partner in a process of regional change and placing itself on both the scientific and the political agenda. Taking into account the questions and the objectives to be achieved, the tasks can be summarised as follows: 1. Why are certain regions of Portugal trapped, caught in a development trap and/or remain lagging regions? • Analyse territorial socio-economic dynamics • Identify development paths, taking into account the diversity and complexity of the economic activities involved • Characterise regional and sub-regional resilience profiles in the face of shocks resulting from the transitions 2. How can we build a differentiated regional development strategy? • Map the impact of transitions on the regional labour markets • Explore case studies that are relevant to the region 3. How can we mobilise actors? What governance structures should be built? What differentiated territorial policies should be co-created? • Provide information to stakeholders and society at large to enable informed participation in policy design and implementation • Promote collaborative laboratories with key stakeholders, facilitating interaction and communication between the different institutional spheres • Involve regional actors in coopetition processes to promote transformative governance processes • Jointly develop policy measures to help unlock the region’s territories in order to strengthen cohesion and/or break out of the development trap