TIPSE - Territorial Dimension of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe

Thematic scope

Combating poverty and social exclusion rank among the main objectives of the European Union and its Member States. At the Lisbon European Council (March 2000) heads of state and government pledged themselves to making a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty by the year 2010.

The recent economic crisis has had a huge effect on millions of European citizens with many people losing their jobs, household incomes decreasing and consequently the risk of being affected by poverty increasing. In order to avoid further economic and social decline in Europe, social exclusion and poverty have been given particular attention in the Europe 2020 Strategy that outlines the way forward to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

For social exclusion, not only a clear definition seems to be lacking, but also there doesn’t seem to be a systematic application of the concept in research.

A new Europe 2020 indicator should serve to monitor progress in the attempts to lift at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty and exclusion.

Another aspect is the integration of migrants from outside the EU which have recently been the main source of population growth in EU regions.

This project shall serve the need to better understand the territorial pattern of poverty and social exclusion in European regions as well as its development over time.

Please read more about the main research areas and main results envisaged on the next page.

Policy questions

• Which territories are confronted with high degrees of poverty or social exclusion?
• What policy recommendations follow from a territorial analysis of poverty and social exclusion?
• How can poverty and social exclusion be monitored at territorial level?

Lead Partner

Nordic Centre for Spatial Development, SE

Detailed information on the contracted project team can be found under Transnational Project Groups.

Sounding Board

Andrey Lalov, BG

Gianmichele Panarelli, IT

Budget: € 749 825.00

Project’s lifetime: February 2012 – November 2014

Delivery of Reports

Inception Report: 7 June 2012

Interim Report: 31 December 2012

Draft Final Report: 30 April 2014

Final Report: 30 September 2014

Publishing

Reports will be published once they are approved by the ESPON Monitoring Committee

More information

Please contact the Project Expert at the ESPON Coordination Unit:

Michaela GENSHEIMER, e-mail: michaela.gensheimer@espon.eu

Main research areas

• Mapping of poverty and social exclusion.
• Development of policy recommendations.
• Development of territorial poverty monitoring.

Main results envisaged

• A robust but flexible small area estimation methodology.
• Territorial poverty maps for all countries where sufficient data is available.
• Identification of areas on which policy, in particular Cohesion Policy, should focus to reduce poverty and social exclusion and where opportunities exist to support smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
• Proposal of methodologies and indicators that could be used to monitor poverty and social exclusion in a territorial manner on an annual basis.
• Typologies of countries participating in the ESPON Programme based on their poverty or exclusion profile.
• Case studies looking into more territorial detail including mapping of findings within the case study areas.