About ITN RegPol²

ITN RegPol² – Socio-economic and Political Responses to Regional Polarisation in Central and Eastern Europe – centres on new patterns of regional disparities between metropolised regions and the remaining parts of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Such a spatial pattern has become a striking feature of the current settlement system of these countries and has lately fuelled concerns about further polarisation and peripheralisation of non-metropolitan regions. Patterns of regional polarisation, however,do not remain restricted to CEE, but can be found throughout the European Union, albeit at different degrees.

As such, there is a high EU-wide demand for professionals able to deal with the spatial implications of these issues. This holds true all the more so as balancing spatial development has been a major goal of European Regional Policy. Against this background, RegPol² trains 16 young researchers for careers in academia, public administration, NGOs and the private sector.

Research training is organised in 3 work packages which comprise individual, albeit strongly interconnected research projects. Each project includes intersectoral secondments providing trainees with occupational links, while at the same time strengthening the interface between academia and the private sector. Local training will be supplemented by network-wide events enabling strong collaboration between the partners. Training includes transferable skills as well as theoretical and methodological units.

The network draws on expertise from academia and private sector specialists from 7 countries and 8 scientific disciplines used to working in interdisciplinary and multinational contexts. Next to new training capacities at the European level and an increased employability of ITN fellows, the project aims at improving regional policy instruments by raising the capacities of politicians, public and private sector policymakers related to issues of regional polarisation.