Project abstract
Regional policy in Europe in conditions of development shocks – challenges of regional development resulting from the socio-economic consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has claimed tens of thousands of victims in Ukraine, forcing millions of people to migrate, while also igniting a global economic crisis that will have serious, long-term effects around the world. The consequences of the shock caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine cover many spheres, with the refugee, energy, agri-food and financial crises being the most important. The consequences of the war are unevenly distributed, affecting to varying degrees not only individual EU Member States (front-line states to a greater extent), but also regions, even within one country. The reaction to the observed shock is also varied, which is primarily conditioned by the resources available for undertaking specific reactions. This spatial differentiation of the consequences of the current crisis and the extent of individual areas’ resilience to disturbances is particularly important for a place-based cohesion policy aiming at creating conditions for sustainable development.
Objective of the project
The main objective of the project is to identify spatial differences in selected social and economic consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and to explain their impact on the transformation of the regional development process and the evolution of regional policy in the European Union (EU) countries and regions.
The implementation of the research project assumes the collection of primary and secondary empirical material and the use of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods for descriptive, explanatory and verifying research. The adopted research procedure assumes:
- The existing data analysis and literature review phase,
- The phase of empirical research (typology of EU regions in terms of the diversity of the scope and structure of social and economic consequences of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, quantitative and qualitative research of 4 areas selected as case studies in Poland, Finland, Germany and Romania),
- And the phase of disseminating the results (publications, formulating recommendations for changes and ways of implementing policies in order to build long-term resilience of individual areas).
The research will be carried out mainly in Poland, but also in Finland, Germany and Romania, in cooperation with renowned research centers in these countries. The time range of the analysis will cover the years 2014-2023, i.e. the period of 3 main shocks:
- Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,
- SARS-Co-V2,
- The energy/economic crisis.
By implementing the research procedure incrementally, the team will strive not only to explain the consequences of the current crisis caused by the war, but also to develop mechanisms to build regions’ long-term resilience to subsequent crises and development shocks.
