Building a typology of European rural areas for the spatial impact assessment of policies (TERA-SIAP)

Within the TERA-SIAP project, we developed a set of regional typologies (at NUTS3 level) which provide a suitable basis for spatial impact assessments of a range of current and possible kinds of intervention (generic policy issues) for rural areas. From a range of socio-economic models, we selected regional input-output models for the spatial impact assessment of two Axis 3 measures (diversification of rural economy, and renovation and development of villages). One of the seven typologies developed, which focused on economic diversification, was used to identify a set of representative case study regions. The modelling results for the 16 case regions illustrated the fact that different types of rural economies are clearly associated with different patterns of policy impacts and that typologies can assist in the choice of appropriate representative regions. The combination of typologies and models are shown to have the potential to enhance the capacity for quantitative spatial impact assessment of rural policy.