Sustainable Development and Transition Management: A New Approach for European Peripheral Areas

This paper on Europe as a sustainable economy and its policy forperipheral areas contributes to the analysis on the relationship between TransitionManagement and new approaches to regional development. It follows thatregions are different ecosystems which require not only conventional macroeconomicvisions for development processes, but also a precise spatial approachbased on different levels of geographical aggregation. The physical environment,therefore, becomes a useful element not only to analyze the transitionmechanisms, but also as a constitutive part of economic, social and environmentalchanges in the short, medium, and long term. A number of interestingaspects are examined and the concept of Living Labs as a modus operandi ofTransition Management is indicated according to the Quintuple Helix model,which requires large-scale public participation, both in the structuring ofproblems as well as the dynamic change in political agendas. The authorsunderline how, in an era of constant transformation, ecosystem managementcontributes to ecological and economic resilience as well as social flexibilityneeded to deal with and challenge the economic crisis as well as the mistrust thatcitizens have towards the European institutions. This paper, founded on anthe ecosystem approach aims to contribute to the debate on the review of theEuropean Cohesion Policy