Editorials

The territorial intelligence portal aspires to become a reference space on the territorial intelligence concept. The portal in particular deals with knowledge, methods, governance and tools for action, as they are presently developed in the framework of the coordination action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence (caENTI).

Started in March 2006 in accompaniment of the caENTI, funded by the 6th research programme of the European Union, the portal progressively enriched with contents and tools. A more editorial version was born in Octobre 2007. The final version of the portal, which aggregates all the data, the tools and the services developed within the caENTI framework, will be available at the beginning of the year 2009.

How the political and financial contexts influence a project of creation of a follow-up tool of users’ itineraries? Because of its evolution and of the new French legal demands, the adapei de Besançon has been working on this issue for a year.

The adapei which is association of friends and parents of mentally disabled people meets the needs at all the life ages by guaranteeing a global individual project and by committing in defending the role and place the handicapped person should have in the society.

For 11 years, the adapei de Besançon has been working with the laboratory ThéMA (University of Franche-Comté) on the itineraries evaluation and follow-up tools. The caENTI (Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence) allowed integrating these tools and giving them the dimension of a participative system.

In collaboration with the caENTI (Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence), the University of Pécs (Hungary) organized an international conference of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence. The subject of the conference, that took place at the end of May 2008, was “Territorial Intelligence, territorial information, indicators and tools”.

The Research Team on Territorial Development and Information & Communication Technologies of the University of Pécs has been contributing to the European Network of Territorial Intelligence since 2003. This is the second ENTI conference that takes place in the city after the 2004 one that was organised within the REIT (Réseau Européen d’Intelligence Territoriale) framework.

Territorial Intelligence is a concept that is often referred to in the field of Information and Communication Sciences. It is a study object that is officially inscribed in the 71st section of the CNU (National Council of Universities, ICS section). It is also present in many works that are published in this disciplines, for example on the website ArchiveSIC, by the SFSIC (French Society of ICS) or by ISDM (http://isdm.tln.fr/).

In the same time, the works led in Territorial Intelligence at the European level consider as essential the papers and functions of information and communication in the tools and methods of territorial governance.

2008 is an important year for crossed research activities in these disciplines: Compiègne welcomes the 16th Congress of the SFSIC from June, the 11th to June, the 13th, and Besançon will welcome the sixth International annual Conference of Territorial Intelligence on October, the 16th and the 17th.

The elaboration of a global solution like Territorial Information Community System (TICS) requires the provision of contextual indicators. They will allow, on the one hand, putting in perspective the information coming from the guide but also, on the other hand, to lightning the guide of data collection when the available statistics directly suggest the information to be collected.

Within the framework of WP6i (caENTI), the questions from the guide have thus been related with a series of indicators. The existence and accessibility of these indicators should be debated for various spatial scales in order to satisfy the requirements fixed by the action territories of the observatories working at various levels.

The objective is to bring to the actors contextual data which legibility could be increased by the use of cartography (cartographic software open source - a solution based on Philcarto was suggested). Included in the Catalyse Toolkit and putted on line, the indicators will lead to an integrated processing of information.

Since the international conference of Huelva 2007 (see blog), the Catalyse toolkit has got along: the software, the methods and the use recommendations evolved. The specifications and the execution in progress of the online version of the tools and accompaniment tools mobilize a dozen of researchers and actors.

In the prospect of the international conference of Besançon 2008 (see blog) and of the end of the present project (February 2009), we evaluated the works evolution during the seminar of the WP6 in Liege in February: the occasion for all the caENTI actors to discover the new tools and to program the evolutions.

Indeed, what is the present state of the works? Let's open the toolkit…

It is pleasant for the director of the Institute of Human and Environment Sciences Claude Nicolas Ledoux (MSHE) to draft this editorial, to announce two important news.

The first information is the organization of the final international conference of the European programme caENTI, funded by the European Community in the 6th FPRD framework. This conference-balance will take place in Besançon, from October, the 15th to the 18th 2008. It is the ultimate international conference in the framework of the European programme caENTI that will have had 3, after Alba Iulia, in Romania, from September, the 20th to the 22nd 2006 and Huelva, in Spain, from October, the 24th to the 27th 2007.

This conference, which call for papers is opened on this website, will be devoted to the theme of Methods and Tools of Territorial Intelligence.

Territorial Intelligence is a polysemic expression. Its frontiers and contents are fuzzy. Its current definitions are numerous and sometimes contradictory. However its usage is wide spreading whatever the risk of confusion is. Then the question: is it necessary or at least useful to attempt to define such a versatile object?

We think it is a responsibility for a project such as CAENTI i.e. a Coordination action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence, to provide elements of a definition, if not a complete one, and guidelines for structuring research and action in the field of territorial intelligence. The aim of these lines is to sketch out a program of research in that direction. Several points of view are going to be briefly reviewed.

Best wishes for the year 2008 to all the caENTI members and to all the researchers and actors in the field of territorial intelligence.

I wish each person’ projects could progress. The year 2008 almost corresponds to the last period of the caENTI project. It will constitute an important moment of the action that should mobilise and valuate all the consortium energy.

It will be a year of convergence of the thinking that were led during the previous years, on the fundamental methods and on the governance principles of territorial intelligence, towards the caENTI objective, the coordination of the research activities on the territorial intelligence tools. It has already been started with the development of new tools for the territorial actors.

Since October 2007, the portal of Territorial Intelligence has evolved towards a new version.

Kicked-off in March 2006 in accompaniment of the Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence (caENTI), the portal progressively enriched of a range of contents and tools to better present the Territorial Intelligence news.

The shown objective: becoming a reference media on the notion of Territorial Intelligence, the knowledge, the methods, governance and the tools for action. Guided tour.

The International Conference of Territorial Intelligence of Huelva (Territorial intelligence and governance. Participative research-action and governance applied to territorial development), took place from October, the 24th to October, the 26th 2007.

This conference was mainly organised by the University of Huelva. We thank Blanca MIEDES and the team of the Local Observatory of Employment who made this event a success, which received 130 participants from 11 countries, with 50 communications and 104 authors.

Welcome on the website of Territorial Intelligence, which wants to be the tool for dissemination of the Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence to the service of the actors of the territorial intelligence.

Funded by the European Union, the caENTI action starts on March, the 1st, 2006, for three years, until February the 28, 2009. It gathers 8 universities and research centers in territorial intelligence, and 7 actors of the sustainable territorial development. It has been the fruit of many research-action activities that were carried out in Europe for more than fifteen years.

Since the beginning of the caENTI action in March 2006, we implemented the consortium management and its communication means, whilst starting the research activities. The year 2007 aims at integrating these research activities to outline a virtual European laboratory.

In August 2006, the activity tools suggested specifications for a European guide of needs diagnosis pour and of services evaluation. It makes a synthesis of the guides that have been used since 1989 by the caENTI partners, in coherence with the European standards.

The specifications to make a "Catalyse toolkit" which exploits the information that were gathered thanks to this guide were drafted in 2006. These tools will be published online in 2007.

On January, the 31st 2007 the call for papers of the Second Annual International Conference of Territorial Intelligence entitled "Territorial Intelligence and Governance. Participatory research-action and territorial development" was published.

This conference will take place in Huelva from October, the 24th to October, the 27th. It will analyse the challenges that the territorial governance of the present democratic societies impose to the research activity on themes that are linked to the sustainable socioeconomic development.

The general reforging of the Territorial Intelligence portal started an important and deep work during the latest months. The new version of the Intra-consortium is presently available for the caENTI members. It completes the cooperative workspace.

A new version of the portal, accompanied by many services, will be put online for the scientific community and the general public, in September 2007.

The first version of the Territorial Intelligence portal was born on March, the 1st 2006 that was the caENTI (Coordination Action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence) starting date.From this moment on, the work consisted in improving the tools that compose it.

We keep working on the preparation of the second Annual International Conference of Territorial Intelligence. A meeting, which background issue is the creation of a new alliance science-society that develops the collaboration between the knowledge organizations and all the system of territorial actors, to promote Territorial Intelligence and, with it, the governance of the issues that are linked to social cohesion and territories sustainable development.

The conference will take place on October, the 25th and 26th 2007, but the caENTI members will be convoked on October, the 24th to internally work in the different constituted scientific coordination groups.

In Alba Iulia (Romania), in September 2006, the first International Conference of Territorial Intelligence took place in the caENTI framework.

From now on, the acts are available for downloading on this website.

Organized by the Universitatea “1 decembrie 1918” of Alba Iulia in Romania, the event wanted to celebrate the entry of this country in the European Union, on January, the 1st 2007. Beyond these objectives of dissemination, as the caENTI wanted, the conference played an important part in the foundation of the research activity at the national level.