[Tools] – The tools of Territorial Intelligence for and by actors of sustainable development (Coordination by Jean-Jacques GIRARDOT)

This theme aims at presenting research activities and analyses about the design, execution, appropriation and use of Territorial Intelligence tools, for and by the territorial actors.

It pays interest to the accessibility of the techniques and methods it uses, as to the one of the information contents they use and product, to the appropriation of these techniques and of these contents by the actors, and to the uses the actors make of these tools.

The Territorial Intelligence tools usually use techniques and methods of space geographic analysis, quantitative and qualitative statistic processing of territorial information, data-processed management of information, communication, projects management and evaluation, to only talk about the main ones , etc.

The pluri-disciplinary and multi-sectorial character of the information contents is combined with their formal variety (data, indicators, tables, graphs, maps, etc.) to increase their diversity that in exchange implies a rigourous information management (metadata).

The appropriation of these techniques and of these contents implies the actors acquire new skills, thanks to a transfer of expert skills towards the actors and the corollary mutation of the experts’ role with a development of the educational function. This transfer is made on the mid-term in the training, but also on the short-term by the projects accompaniment.

The use of these tools within development partnerships and in a participative context concern varied subjects. The information sharing and the data cooperative analysis favour the partnership work. The actors’ participation to the indicators choices, to the results interpretation and to the process of projects submission strongly modifies the tools use. The results public restitution, the users’ access to the information, their participation to the observation and evaluation activities, more and more imply the tools in the communicational and decision-making process.

This theme will especially value:

• The tools whose use respects the sustainable developement principles,
• The analysis of the tools co-construction processes and
• The analysis of the experiences linked to Equal development partnerships.