Initiatives of supra-regional nature are examined in each of the 12 Swiss AAs in conjunction with an assessment of the geographical setting, obstacles to collaboration and strategic ambitions assigned to the AA by the SSS.
This leads to the following structure applied to each of the case studies:
• Composing a so-called ‘model mapshot’ that synthesises the geographical settings that are most relevant to understand territorial and development patterns in relation with collaboration issues in the AA. The full process for the creation of mapshots is described in Annex 6.1.
• Focusing on the relevant geographical settings, i.e. the ones that either constitute a barrier, an opportunity or a specific objective in term of territorial cooperation as identified in the SSS for each of the AA. Emphasis has been made on structural elements that are deemed relevant for sustainable development such as the extension of the AA, possible linguistic issues, metropolitan influences, settlement patterns, development axis, transport corridors and economic structure.
• A summary of strategic ambitions and areas of intervention as foreseen by the SSS for each AA, distinguishing between the core and the enlarged perspective.
• Identifying existing supra-regional collaboration initiatives that the actors within AA are currently participating in. The scale matters in the selection, indeed collaboration that take place at a functional level (like an agglomeration project) are left aside. Identified initiatives results from a mail survey to a list of specialists provided by the ARE and has been completed with extensive web review of collaboration structures active at supra-regional level.
• Identifying specific barriers and potentials to cooperation. Barriers can be natural, cultural or administrative. They are considered as obstacle that field actors are invited to overcome with collaboration initiatives in order to allow the AA to fulfil the objectives stated in the SSS. Specific potentials can result from geographical setting such as a transport corridor or a mountain massif that drives cooperation. They can also result from cultural links that promote a sense of belonging that favour rapprochement.
• Delivering a synthetic description of cooperation challenges and opportunities in the AA, based on the geographical analysis and on the assessment of existing cooperation.
It is aimed to provide ideas on where the project team think supra-regional cooperation
➢ Collaboration’s organisation: formalisation, territorial coverage, levels & actors, historicity and resources
➢ Logic of intervention: strategic ambition, kind of activities and areas of intervention Dimensions and characteristics of soft territorial cooperation instances follows the conceptual and methodological framework of the project (cf. synthetic table in Annexe 6.2). Following this structure ensures easy comparisons of Swiss collaboration initiatives with the European case studies.
The overarching idea is to choose the most relevant features for each AA, so as to allow the construction of a narrative that combines considerations pertaining to geographical settings, obstacles to collaboration, development opportunities and existing collaborations. This makes it possible to provide first insights on the potential added-value of supra-regional cooperation within each AA. The method has been applied on all 12 Swiss action areas.
3.3.2 Deeper understanding for a selection of AAs
To get a deeper understanding (i.e. by conducting interviews) of the positioning of existing supra-regional collaboration initiatives with the SSS, an in-depth analysis of 7 AAs was carried out. AAs that show interesting collaboration features chosen for the in-depth analysis (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: The seven AAs where interviews were conducted
Source: ESPON ACTAREA, 2017
This selection of AAs, however, introduces a bias: while it helps highlighting and understanding
cooperation initiatives at AA-level. However, the objectives of comparison with EU case studies and promotion of good practices as solution to be transferred to other AA’s has justified that choice.
A set of general questions has been submitted to field actors participating in supra-regional collaboration initiatives in theses AAs, covering four core dimensions that were customised to the specific context within which each interview was taking place:
• How do selected cooperation initiatives position themselves with the SSS?
• How do they integrate the SSS objectives?
• What is the level of collaboration with other initiatives, both within and outside the AA?
• Has the SSS changed anything in the way existing collaborations are functioning?
Interviews have also provided an opportunity to address pending questions to complete information gathered during desk review and to ask field actors what policy measures from the federal level they deemed most appropriate to help better achieving the objectives of the SSS.
Additionally, “institutional maps” (see Annex 6.3) were developed to complete case studies where cooperation initiatives are particularly dense and overlapping. They provide a representation of the institutional context and cooperation setting that has been established so far and synthesises how cooperation instances may overlap (in geographic terms), are implemented in parallel in adjacent areas or are nested in each other at different scales.
• Institutional maps are available for Lake Geneva AA, Jura Massif AA, Swiss Capital Region AA.
• From a transnational perpective and with a slightly different design applied to the
“European Atlas of Soft Territorial Cooperation”, institutional maps are also available for the Trinational Metropolitan Region of the Upper Rhine and Spatial Development Commission Lake Constance.
Extensive review of Swiss case-studies based on the above presented analysis framework are grouped into the Atlas of Swiss AAs (see Chapter 5).
4 Learnings from investigation on the Swiss AAs
This chapter presents key transversal observations as a synthesis of the review of cooperation issues and initiatives in the 12 Swiss AAs (see chapter 5). It provides lessons learnt on three distinct, but closely interlinked aspects. Section 4.1 summarises what main four types of supra-regional cooperation practices exist in AAs. Section 4.2 then proposes an alternative typology of Swiss AAs based on the observation of cooperation types, maturity and density that is complementary to the geographical typology used in the SSS. Section 4.3 specifies the need for policy support, as expressed by field actors active in supra-regional cooperation. The final section 4.4 broadens these perspectives by drawing on the project’s results from both the Swiss and European case studies.