State-of-the-art of Territorial Intelligence

Traditionally Territorial Intelligence has been fed by economics, geography, Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies (ICST) and knowledge management. The links with economical intelligence and the ICST are often quoted in the current definitions of territorial intelligence. The systems of territorial intelligence require the use of traditional processes of information broadcasting and of information technologies and communication by the means of Intranet or Internet sites, documentation, geographical information systems and data analysis.

On-going research activities in Territorial Intelligence are mainly led by Jean-Jacques Girardot (http://thema.univ-fcomte.fr/) as well as Philippe Dumas and Yann Bertacchini (http://i3m.univ-tln.fr/). Their definitions follow the same dynamics and assert that territorial intelligence:

• is linked to “all the multi-field knowledge that improve the understanding of the structure and dynamics of territories” [Girardot 2002]
• moves closer “the intelligence as a cognitive process and a process of information organization, and the territory as a space of significant relations” [Dumas 2004]
• or still “can be likened to the territoriality which results from the phenomenon of appropriation of the territory resources then in the skills transfers between categories of local actors of different culture” [Bertacchini 2004].

Three evolutions strengthen this perspective

First of all, the contemporary society does not only defines itself as the "information society" in which the use of low-cost information technologies spreads widely and thus creates organisational and social innovations. The concept of "knowledge society" emphasizes the importance of knowledge, creativity and social and human capital.

Then, “the territory is not perceived anymore as a more or less constraining natural framework, that as a more or less valuable historical heritage, but like an actors' construction” [Daumas 2003].

Finally, if we often keep in mind the ecological definition of sustainable development, as quoted previously, the Brundtland Report [1987] clarifies that two concepts are inherent to this notion. The concept of "needs", and more particularly of essential needs of the most deprived people, to which it is advisable to grant the largest priority, and the idea of limitations due to the state of our techniques and to our social organization imposes on the capacity of the environment to answer the current needs and the ones to come.

Such orientations establish the specificity and the added value of the CAENTI project, which will instrument the research activities focused on the social human relations of any types, on multidisciplinarity and on a set of joint actions. Communication and information technologies play an important role. Development of citizenship and democracy, social equity, as well as economical and social progress, constitutes the main objectives of territorial development and territorial governance.

In most of the regions belonging to the European area, governance based on settlement factors (villages, cities, towns) prevails on governance centred on the territory and on the territorial community, with a closer link to the notion of sustainable development (for example, many regional web-sites do not make not any reference to the participative model). In this sense, the concept of territorial governance seems to benefit from a light anteriority in Canada (Acadie, Outaouais). It only starts to being questioned by the research activities led in Europe and in France. (“The fourth Days of the nearness: territorial governance as a new mode of territorial coordination ”, FUCAM de Mons, Université Joseph Fourier de Grenoble, May the 25th 2004, and seminar “ Territorial reorganizations and new administrative borders ”, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, March, 11th 2005) . In Australia for example, most debates are linked to the topic of governance of durable regional development, “Promoting sustainable development: The Question of Governance” [Lawrence 2004, http://www.irsaworld.org/XI/program/Lawrence.pdf] in “ CATALYSE. Cunoastere, participare si dezvoltare in spatiu comunitar ” (Catalysis. “Knowledge, participation and development in the community space”) [Pascaru coord. 2005].

The rarity of multi-field practices hinders the development of territorial knowledge, tools dissemination for territorial data processing and, eventually prevent from setting up the necessary analyses for an integrated approach of the territories. The fundamental scientific approach in the social sciences is still dominated by a sector-based approach, multi-disciplinarity being recorded mainly between closely related disciplines (for exemple between sociology and psychology, between economy and geography) and much more rarely between distant disciplines (sociology and geography or information sciences and communication). Research works on connections between behaviours and environment are carried out about south-eastern Asia “Methodology and Major Findings of a Comparative Research Project on Environmental Consciousness in Hong Kong (China), Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam” in south-eastern Asian Studies [Nickum et Rambo 2003, http://www.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/edit/publications/seas/41/1/metho.pdf].

Concerning the comparative research activities, although the European area is the main territory for research activities and European scientific analysis, the studies coordinated by the most notorious American universities prevail as far as resources, area, cultural prints and dissemination activities are concerned (see XI World Congress of Rural Sociology, Trondheim, Norway, July the 25-30, 2004, http://www.irsaworld.org/XI/program/workshops.html). These universities developed, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, networks of well-integrated researchers, having provided visible results. European programs would rather fund the training of actors and sector-based actions of local development, but not fundamental scientific research programs, which nevertheless are vital for the good applicability of the former.

In the field of territorial engineering, the access to the use of GIS remains complex. Few are used by social sciences researchers, except geographers. Their use by actors of territorial governance causes more problems. The research activities tools in social sciences generally suffer from a deficit of standardisation when they are used on the same territory and the methodologies that are used are hardly made explicit. The processing instruments of quantitative and qualitative data are not accessible to the actors.

Information sharing remains defective and harms the participative and collaborative action. The absence of local, national and trans-European research instruments is visible. The euro-barometers, which collect primarily questions of public opinion, constitute the very exception. They can contribute to the decision-making only as general indicators. By no means can they be used to describe territorial development policies, social problems resolution, and good governance management. We can notice a certain delay as regards the possibility to establish unit indicators, unit territorial cuttings and the level where the data are collected, but we may especially notice the absence of continuity as for the collection of data. Due to the weakness of the multi-field approach in the social sciences and to the division into sectors of territorial action, such disparities prevent from developing a global solution. Thus the social sciences researcher or local actor should compare data that are collected at different territorial levels, different scales of time, and that are based on indicators which are defined in different ways. In this fields, good practices are not well known and do not benefit from an adequate dissemination.

The Coordination Action caENTI offers to achieve improvements, not to say breakthroughs, in the use of territorial information and of its instruments of comparative analysis and multi-field research activities, and in governance analysis.