LIST OF PANELS

First, we welcome papers which address these issues on an empirical basis and focus on the implementation process at the regional level. Different types of actors can be investigated: public or private, experts or policy managers, any public policy field (social, employment, environmental...). As a part of an ongoing collective research project, the main aim of the panel is to gather various empirical field investigations highlighting different findings. Second, as we focus on the relationship between experts and regional policy making, we welcome researchers but also experts and policy managers as paper givers. A large variety of questions stemming from this reflexion can be addressed into two main sessions: Session 1 – Do infra-national actors behave differently in EU policy implementation? Is there a specificity of the regional level in the way of public policy implementation? Do all actors investigated agree on the definition of what is local or regional? Exploring the infra national: do the balances between regional and local actors only depend on institutional and administrative actors? How can social sciences address the analytical challenge of identifying the specific weight of EU, national and regional path dependencies? Is it easier to identify “civil society” and “socio economic” actors at the regional level? Under which conditions do regional actors seek to obtain EU funds and programs? To what extent are regional policy-makers aware of EU implicit public policy objectives? Session 2 – The growth of expertise policy implementation: an EU- or region-driven strategy? How do the national and regional context shape the relations between expertise and scientific research? For instance, how do the different epistemological trends influence the way research enters in dialogue with expertise and consultancy? Are some disciplines better appreciated in the policy advice and why? Conversely, under which conditions are policy advice and expertise experiences positively valued in the academia? To what extent do experts and their solutions really circulate across regions and across countries? To what extent are professional experiences with EU programs valuable in other fields? Under which conditions can the EU programs expertise be used for political purposes, be it in the political or administrative arenas? 

Regions have gained significant importance in the European Cohesion policy. Their involvement in EU public policies implementation is actively encouraged and very much has been written on its impact on the policy making styles and governance, in many different countries and different policy sectors. Partly because of that empirical importance, regions have also gained theoretical and political importance in the analysis of EU public policy, helping to reveal how deep the EU integration process is and how EU objectives are practically embodied. Many scholars underline how much they constitute the relevant level for EU policy implementation. By doing so, they largely meet political strategies both at the regional and EU levels. Questioning the porosity between empirical and theoretical valuations offers stimulating discussions points for wider analytical issues. When political concerns are raised around the process of regionalization, they mostly focus on two dimensions. On the one hand, researchers are massively engaged over the nature of “territories”: are they pure political constructions or are these constructions rooted into deeper cultural specificities? Plus, what is the relevant level of analysis for identifying policy change at the “territorial level”? What are the implications for national balances? Is it realistic and useful to apply the same analytical lenses of the local level in different countries and regions? Which solutions can be found to overcome the high variety of situations? On the other hand, a vast array of scholars are engaged into policy advise and expertise for regional authorities and can therefore participate to the legitimization of “regionalist” or “neo regionalist” (as KEATING and FERRERA put it) agendas. In many countries (France, Italy, Spain, Belgium) researchers tend to value regional identities and policy making. The main challenge, in this case, consists in taking distance with the public authority demands: how can one remain critical, and what does it mean in practice? These two dimensions show the heuristic value of reflexivity efforts in the field of European policies’ implementation at the regional level. The discussions raised through this panel will help address core challenges in comparative public policy methods; but also on the role of researchers as experts in regional public policy.