Editorials

GDRI-INTI, International Research Group “International Network of Territorial Intelligence” started January 1, 2011, for four years, at the end of an international scientific evaluation organized by the CNRS. It gathers seven research teams from five countries: MSHE, ThéMA and ESO (France), OLE (France), SEGEFA (Belgium), DISUFF (Italia) and TAG (Argentina).

Its main aim is the consolidation of the integration of European researches in Territorial Intelligence in order to give them an international dimension.

The next scientific events of ENTI, in Pecs, Marne-la-Vallée, Liège and Gatineau will be the opportunity to restructure the research project of ENTI by deepening the work plan of new-LiFE.

The project new-LiFE, put forward by ENTI for the 7th European research programme, about the topic “Europe moving towards a new path of economic growth and social development”, was submitted on Februar 2th.

How can Europe maintain economic growth and social welfare despite the financial crisis and the ecological challenges?

39 research centres and in Europe and around the world (17 european countries, 4 international countries, more than 200 researchers and stakeholders) are associated with the project new-LiFE “A development driven by well being for a successful socio-ecological transition in Europe” through the European Network of Territorial Intelligence, ENTI.

New-LiFE is based on the assumption that a new path of development driven by well-being and ensuring a minimum standard of quality of life for all can be crucial to the success of socio-ecological transition, it must be:

• based on cooperation and territorial observation,

• driven by a plural design of innovation,

• based on co-constructed knowledge across territories and

• animated by a participatory territorial governance.

Following the publication of a new FP7-SSH call for project on July 20, 2010, the Summer School of Territorial Intelligence held on July 22-23, 2010, in Marne-la-Vallée (France), focused on the opportunities of response to the new call, taking into account the evaluation of job-LIFE as a promising but incomplete proposal.

A new topic, very close to our previous proposal job-LIFE, has been suggested and a timetable for response was established.

According to the evaluation of job-LIFE, we will clear the state of art as the structure of the project, give a detailed work plan at the level of the tasks performed by each researcher, and the budget, rebalance the consortium towards North and East Europe, better the transversal implication of the partners, introduce evaluation in the management and deepen diffusion.

The project "Cooperate and observe for a successful socio-ecological transition in Europe", " new-LIFE" for short, meets about topic "Europe moving towards a new path of economic growth and social development" of the call project to the 7th Framework Programme for Research of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration1 published on July 20, 2010 in the 8th thematic “Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities”.

Guidelines

new-LIFE is a "large scale integrated research project" entered in activity 8.1 “Growth, employment and competitiveness in a knowledge society – the European case".

“In order to succeed the socio-ecological transition” in a context of crisis characterized by many global challenges, the EU must adapt its policy framework and common rules "to strive for accelerated transformation of the financial, economic and environmental structures and policies as well as modernisation of social welfare and development of high quality standards of the environment."

new-LIFE is also in "paths towards sustainable development", characterized at “combining economic, social and environmental objectives” and cultural ones, in Europe and worldwide.

...

After a paper about the main objectives of the project Job-LIFE and another one about the research Axis {life quality}, the present editorial introduces a second research axis of the project: {job system}.

It was elaborated in the Framework of the project " Future jobs for a better life " (Job-LIFE), which is an answer of the ENTI to the call for project of the 7th Framework Program for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities of the European Union FP7, in the theme “Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities” in the topic “Creating and adapting jobs in Europe in the context of a socio-ecological transition”.

This axis “Territorial job systems, innovation and governance for creating and adapting jobs in the socio-ecological transition”, will focus on the identification of territorial trends of creation and adaptation of employment in the framework of the current socio-ecological transition. It will address positive experiences of social and ecological innovation and discuss the characteristics of territorial governance of employment systems in order to detect those that are potentially favorable to the creation and the adaptation of jobs in this new context...

"Grand Ouest" Days of the territorial intelligence IT-GO held on 24th, 25th and 26th Mars 2010 in Nantes and Rennes and have explicitly refered to one of the themes of the call for projects of the 7th Framework program of Research of the European Union, "Territorial intelligence and socio- ecological foresight ".

This first Great Western meeting has enabled emergence and spreading of the knowledge, the practices and the tools of the territorial intelligence among the scientists of the western regions of France, as well as raising awareness of the decision-makers and the territorial actors about environmental accessibility problematics.

173 participants, 14 countries from Mercosur to Canada, without forgetting Europe and France, followed the scientific conference (47 communications) and the professional meeting (21 communications). Blog of the conference has already received more than 600 visits and we had also received many emails that express the will to participate to the continuation of the territorial intelligence network, in particular by offering to receive meetings and seminars, in Strasbourg in November 2010, in Argentina and in Canada.

With sharpening the socio- ecological foresight of territorial intelligence research-action projects, goals of this conference have been widely reached, with both the european dimension of the presented project acknowledgment, and the high reasonance level throughout scientifical, institutional and professional institutions.

The previous editorial presented in a global way the overall objective and axes of research of the project " Future jobs for a better life ", answer of the ENTI to the call for project of the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities of the European Union FP7), in the theme “ Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities” in the topic “Creating and adapting jobs in Europe in the context of a socio-ecological transition”.

The present editorial focuses on the objectives of the axis of research called { life quality}: “Work, territories and life quality in the combination of the objectives of the sustainable development”.

This axis aims at drawing a prospective analysis of the mutations of work in a global comparative approach of European territories development.

Worldwide mutations towards a sustainable development suggest a multi dimensional and integrated life system in which work is a genuine part. Articulation between “work side”, “social side” and “countryside” designs the quality level of human life, so called wellbeing or life quality.

Nevertheless, these variations and gaps remind difficult to affirm rigorously, as social and ecologic indicators suffer from a lake of territorial definition. Work as an integrating part of life quality can’t be defined through the exclusive economic dimension; therefore, it can’t answer the pure economic objective, as this last more responding to financial and market solicitations than to a quantitative and qualitative job progress.

The European Network of Territorial Intelligence, ENTI, filed on February 2 the European project “ Future jobs for a better life”, “ job-LIFE” for short.

It responds to the call for project of the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities of the European Union ( FP7), in the theme “ Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities”.

This editorial presents the overall objective of the project and its main axis of research.

The day of Tuesday, March 23 will be devoted to enhancing the job-LIFE project in the framework of the 8th international conference of territorial intelligence to be held from March 24 to 26, 2010, in Nantes and Rennes, on the thematic "Territorial Intelligence and socio-ecological foresight", which also refers to the combination of economic, social, environmental and cultural objectives of the sustainable development.

It is now necessary to deepen the work plan of the project and detail the functions within the consortium and teams, to be able to start the project on 1 January 2011.

The 9th international conference of territorial intelligence, to be held in Strasbourg on Wednesday 17 to Friday, November 19, 2010 on the theme of ecological and social innovation, will further deepen the work plan (The call for papers will be published shortly).

We wish you in the name of the steering committee of ENTI and of the project job-LIFE, an excellent year of 2010 and the success of the current projects.

ENTI, "European Network of Territorial Intelligence", is a structure opened to all those who wish to contribute to its program of research which is conceived around three axes and around three transverse themes.


 Three axes, defined by the board of ENTI in continuity of the caENTI "coordination action European Network of Territorial Intelligence" (from March, 2006 to February, 2009) are:

• [ Territories] Territories as place and territorial intelligence as mean of the socio-ecological transition and of the combination of economic, social, environmental and cultural objectives of sustainable development
• [ Indicators] Accessibility of the indicators of the sustainable development for the territorial actors, scientific generic methods and action tools for indicators analysis
• [ Governance] Territorial governance for sustainable development

Three transversethemes are:

• [ Vulnerability] Vulnerability of territories and vulnerable populations
• [ Culture] The culture as fourth objective of the sustainable development of territories
• [ Gender] Gender and sustainable development of territories

“Future jobs (for a) better life”, shortly said Job-LIFE, is a project responding to the last call for project of the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities of the European Union, in the theme “Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities” of the Cooperation Work Programme 2010.

The seventh international conference of territorial intelligence, held in Salerno from 4th to 6th of November achieved its two goals.

It showed that culture can be considered as the fourth pillar of sustainable development and that it constitutes an important element in the development of territories.

It helped organize the convergence of the research axes of the ENTI, European Network of Territorial Intelligence and the guidance of call for the projects for FP7, the 7th Framework Program for Research and Development of the European Union, published on 30th of July.

The conference brought together nearly one hundred participants from nineteen countries worldwide, and there were fifty participants online. Over one hundred people visited the blog of the conference every day.

After the end of the coordination action caENTI, supported by the FP6 from March 2006 to February 2009, ENTI had reorganized its research axes, as well as its research and dissemination activities in the continuity of caENTI.

ENTI board, the European Network of Territorial Intelligence board, met online in the MSHE Claude Nicolas Ledoux (Besançon, France) to define and schedule the pursuit of the research activities started by the caENTI (Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence).

It discussed the project that will be elaborated by ENTI to answer the call for project of the 7th PCRDT of the European Union.

The research activities of ENTI were reorganized within the framework of five axes:

1. [territory] Territory and territorial intelligence ontology
2. [indicators] Accessibility of territorial indicators of the sustainable development
3. [governance] Territorial governance for sustainable development
4. [vulnerability] Vulnerability of territories and vulnerable populations
5. [culture] Relations between the culture and the sustainable territorial development

After the publication of the call for papers of Salerno (4-8 November 2009), we announce the first West Region meeting of Territorial Intelligence in Nantes and Rennes (Spring 2010).

These two meetings are part of several scientific events organized to support the answer of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence (ENTI) to the coming call for project of the 7th framework programme for research and development in socio-economic sciences and humanities.

After the successful caENTI dissemination seminar in Brussels, on last April 16th, the month of May will be dedicated to the constitution of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence (ENTI). This dissemination seminar was a milestone between the caENTI and the preparation of a project in the framework of the 7th European research and dissemination program of the European Union. M. RIZZO, our scientific officer, closed the seminar with a presentation containing many advices in that direction.

caENTI ended on February, 28th 2009. Final reports were delivered during the seminar, meeting deadlines. The next call for project proposals will probably be lauched in September, with a deadline for submission in January.

A project of such importance has to be prepared in advance.

Territorial intelligence, as it is defined by our research group, should be able to design forms of promotion of the available resources development that, not only should not affect and should even increase the historical-environmental heritage, but should also conform to a culture which main objective is to increase public awareness of immaterial needs, apprehended as transnational ones.

One of these aspects, there is in the post-industrial societies, concerns the development concept. Indeed, we cannot define it in a unique way as a form of industrial production at a large scale, as it was done until a recent moment. This new concept, and here is the change, implies the convergence of the different forms of non material resources, and particularly of human resources. A culture that chooses non material values, especially concerning the artistic heritage and landscapes, feed the tourism sectors multiple dimensions.

We have been extremely sad to learn Jean-Philippe MASSONIE’s death on March, the 21st. We are grateful to him for having opened innovative, daring and stimulating research orientations within humanities and social sciences with tenacity.

When he created the Laboratory of Mathematics, Data-processing and Statistics (MIS) within the Faculty of Human sciences of the Université de Franche-Comté in 1964, Jean-Philippe MASSONIE encouraged a research which originality was based on systematic observation, on rigorous data analysis, and on the association of quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Professor of mathematics and erudite humanist, he diffused statistical methods and data-processing tools within research teams, by developping strong relations between hard sciences -natural sciences- on the one hand, and humanities and social sciences on the other hand.

The end of February 2009 corresponded to the end of the Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence (caENTI), which began in March 2006 for a three-year duration. During this period, the caENTI was funded by the European Commission within the 6th FPRTD framework, in order to integrate current research on territorial intelligence tools. The objective was to give them a European dimension. We thank the fifteen partners, universities and territorial actors, and the 150 researchers who contributed to the caENTI activities and success.

We also thank all the people and organizations involved in the caENTI project at different levels and wishing to join the European network of territorial intelligence or to be associated to it at the international scale and suggesting new activities in the prospect of a network of excellence.

The month of February is the caENTI last one.

We have now initiated the caENTI last step, which is the drafting of the final report.

During a first coordination seminar in Huelva from January, 25th to 28th, the leaders of the three caENTI scientific "work packages" -tools, methods and governance- and of their research groups worked on the evaluation of the scientific reports situation and of the progress state of the final report. It allowed definitely sharing the tasks linked to the final drafting of the different documents and of the final report parts.

The main conclusions were debated and articulated. We made a first version of the communications for the dissemination seminar planned on February 26th 2009 in Brussels. It summarizes these conclusions and will allow better articulating them and deepening them, by using the intra-consortium space of the portal.

Happy new year 2009 to all the caENTI members, and to all the researchers and territorial actors who are already involved in the anticipation of a network of excellence in territorial intelligence.

More generally, happy new year to all the persons who think it is more and more urgent to pitch on sustainable development, which include the territories scale, with:

- A multi-disciplinary scientific approach,

- A governance that balances the economic, social and environmental indicators whilst respecting cultures,

- Relevant and efficient partnership and participative actions.

The crisis intensification at the end of 2008 unfortunately shown once again these orientations urgency and the linked stakes for the scientific research.