Finanziamento UE – NextGenerationEU PRIN 2022 "Place-based Unfolding, Localities and Participation (PULP) in NRRPs" PNRR M4C2 investimento 1.1 Avviso 104/2022

Our main research objective is to investigate the potential impact of NRRPs on spatial inequalities across a selection of European countries. More specifically, we will look at the territorial “twist” assumed by some national projects within the Next Generation EU program. In addressing this question, we know that the effects of NRRPs on inequalities depend on: - the context-specific characteristics of the countries in which they will be applied – namely their internal level of unevenness, its underlying geography and its determinants, as well as on their institutional arrangements and setting; - the governance of the plans, both design and implementation. This point depends on whether the strategy is designed so as to overcome sectoral silos and address the intersection, place by place, of different inequalities (relating to wealth, prospects and opportunity, gender, ethnicity and geography) and of the ecological and social dimensions; whether a place-sensitive (vs. a one-size-fits-all) approach prevails; whether a mission- and method- setting role of central authorities is combined with adequate ownership and discretionality by local governments; whether a widespread participation and commitment of citizens, communities, trade unions and employees and a public debate are ensured and whether policy learning merging local and global knowledge is fostered. Exploring the design and the implementation of NRRPs governance, and assessing how place-sensitive it is, is therefore of paramount importance. This is the main task of the study. To this end, our project proposes to compare the ongoing experiences of NRRPs carried out in different countries to capture the “place-sensitiveness” embedded in them and the forms through which it is operationally implemented. The study will analyze a sample of NRRPs. They will be chosen according to their relevance, their differences and the interplay between EU and national policies. The selection of the four countries will be based on three analytical criteria: 1. existing level of within spatial inequalities; 2. centre-periphery, urban-rural or other geographical cleavages (e.g. inner areas in Italy, “Empty Spain” or “Greater Paris”); 3. traditional institutional arrangements. Along with these, a transversal operational criterion will guide our choice: the availability of comparable secondary data which are needed to provide a contextual background of the pool of the countries under scrutiny and the accessibility of information on official policy documents and on the underpinning governance. Following this cross-country desk analysis, the Italian NRRP will be scrutinized more in-depth through a multi-source collection of Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca MUR - BANDO 2022 primary data to thoroughly delve into the mechanisms of its governance. Our macro-objective implies a series of sub-objectives which are dealt with in the 4 work packages around which our research questions and activities are organized. More specifically, two work packages (WP1 and WP2) will be devoted to the description of the “Place-specificness” (Sub-objective 1) of the selected countries, and two work packages (WP3 and 4) will investigate the “Place-sensitiveness” (Sub-objective 2) of the corresponding NRRPs in light of what emerged from the contextual analysis carried out in WP1 and 2. From WP1 to WP4 we will gradually move along an in-depth continuum, from desk to field research. In this Section 2, we will outline the underlying rationale guiding each stage of our study, the related specific research objectives and methodologies. In Section 3, we will provide details on the implementation steps of research activities, the work plan and partners’ contribution. SUB-OBJECTIVE 1: PLACE-SPECIFICNESS In order to assess the level of place-sensitiveness of the selected NRRPs, we have to first explore the main features of the countries i