Increasingly, cities and municipalities are involved in urban experimentation to meet current societal challenges. The expectations on local authorities to implement new ways of dealing with current challenges are high and raise questions of municipal capacity and governance structures, challenging more traditional ways of planning and policymaking. In this paper we have analysed three urban experiments related to transport and mobility in three Swedish municipalities and how they are governed and planned for. The study builds on qualitative interviews and document analysis. Our results show that the municipalities are working with urban experiments on different scales. All experiments are top-down experiments run by the municipalities, with limited citizen involvement. All experiments have become part of placemaking activities in the municipalities with the aim to support and promote both future visions and municipal sustainability work related to transport and planning. However, to date, the experiments have had limited outcomes, and planners express a concern for implementation and limited knowledge transfer within and between cities.

Urban mobility challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic crisis have gained added attention, with a focus on inclusivity of vulnerable citizens, safety and affordability. The EU-funded ELABORATOR project started in June 2023, aiming to deliver co-designed interventions in the urban fabric of 12 European cities. This paper introduces the project, focusing on the co-designed procedure of evaluation methodology comprising the evaluation plan and providing unified metrics suitable for knowledge transfer with outputs to measure and assess the impact of the co-designed city interventions.

The ELABORATOR project aims to support cities across Europe in their transition to climate neutrality by promoting the implementation of mobility interventions towards inclusive, sustainable, safe and affordable mobility. The project aims to provide tools and methods to support a truly collaborative and participatory approach in achieving inclusive transport infrastructure development in 12 cities in Europe. The deliverable of T2.3, the ELABORATOR Co-creation playbook provides practical guidelines to engage groups of stakeholders and citizens in the development of qualitative data collection methods, comprising community-based and citizensscience research to ensure that the final methods and tools have legitimacy for all the parties involved in new and innovative urban interventions’ design and deployment. The playbook provides a solid foundation for the cities to work with co-creation methodologies to support the involvement of stakeholders and citizens, especially focusing on the inclusion of VRUs in co-creation processes. Hopefully these guidelines will also prove fruitful for other cities working with collaborative methods. 

We propose an innovative approach to empower urban planners by integrating comprehensive and qualified citizen input into the planning of the 15-minute city (15mC) through immersive digital technologies. Our methodology includes (1) enabling citizens to annotate their real environment using augmented reality, (2) generating urban space alternatives based on generative AI and citizen annotations, (3) allowing modifications to AI-generated alternatives, (4) providing immersive 3D simulation environments for experiencing these alternatives, and (5) facilitating better negotiation between citizens and political players to identify the optimal solution. This process aims to account for diverse stakeholder interests, ensuring inclusive contributions and an experiential understanding of potential urban adaptation.

With this paper we aim to contribute to the field of sociotechnical studies, and more specifically Large Technical Systems (LTSs) to understand what happens in mature systems and how different segments develop. We argue that there is a need to discuss LTSs more heterogeneously to fully grasp how phases of stagnation and drift play out differently. Our focus is on district heating in Swedish municipalities with a shrinking population. As such district heating is an important system for climate measures in Europe and in Sweden it has a long tradition of municipal ownership and strong development. The emphasis is on the ways different district heating systems evolve and how various segments of an LTS develop. We have used a mixed-methods approach and the empirical material in this study builds on municipal documents and annual reports of energy companies, an online survey to energy companies, and qualitative interviews with representatives from energy companies and municipalities. Our results show that private companies are overrepresented in small and shrinking municipalities, and that they develop their business models around small systems to keep them profitable. Instead, municipal owned companies face several challenges concerning capacity, requirements, and economic profitability. From an LTS-perspective, the analysis shows how different actors in the segments adopt different strategies to manage stagnation, leading to segments drifting apart.

Previous work on shrinking cities has mainly addressed shrinkageand its effects in large and former industrial cities and not as muchin municipalities in rural areas. In this paper, we focus oninfrastructure challenges, responsibilities, and growth strategies inSwedish municipalities. We argue that there is a tension betweenthe responsibilities connected to the municipal operations andinfrastructure challenges posed by being a shrinking municipalityon the one hand, and the ways the municipalities are planning forgrowth on the other hand. The municipalities are all strugglingwith the effects of population decline, leading to economic strainsin all areas, including infrastructure management anddevelopment, but investments in infrastructure are many timesdirected towards the establishment of specific industries such asthe tourism or mining industry with the belief of attracting newinhabitants, visitors, firms and industry. In addition, many of themunicipalities lack the capacity and jurisdiction needed to managethe infrastructure development in some areas such as fibre optics,district heating, and electricity grids. Also, in some municipalities,the populations are spread over large geographical areas but muststill provide infrastructure services to all inhabitants.

This paper reconsiders the roles of actors in regional innovation systems in the context of transformative industrial change. Empirically, it draws on evidence from the Värmland region of Sweden, where regional innovation system actors, with partial funding from the Swedish Innovation Agency, are striving to build a bioeconomy upon the traditional forest-related industries. The main findings include that transformative industrial change adds a variety of responsibilities to regional actors, including the provision of change legitimacy, influencing the industry’s innovation directionality and achieving social acceptance for change. A combined perspective on sociotechnical transitions and path development in regional innovation systems theoretically informs the case.

Today's societies face significant ecological and societal challenges, including climate change and economic crises. In this context, forests can be a useful resource for new innovations and products. However, increased out-take of forest resources can raise the pressure on common forest resources and increase already existing conflicts between e.g. forestry and production versus conservation. Herein, the objective of this paper was to explore a collaborative process, namely landscape resource analysis (LRA), as a tool to identify a variety of values and sometimes conflicting interests and to improve communication about these among different stakeholders by using maps and GIS. The method was applied to a small forest area, Norra Klarälvsdalen, in Värmland County, Sweden. The area hosts a variety of forest owners, firms and companies in different sectors and several voluntary organisations with interest in the local forest. The study showed that LRA in combination with GIS has the potential to add value to collaborative processes in local planning and forest decision making processes. Even though it is difficult to guarantee broad representation in collaborative processes, the LRA served to identify a wide range of values and conflicting interests among the local participants including as well immaterial, e.g. cultural ecosystem services, as material and monetary values in the forest area. It also served as a tool for social learning and put focus on local citizens perspectives and experiences in addition to ‘experts’ of forest landscapes.

Nästan hälften av Sveriges 290 kommuner har haft en minskande befolkning under de senaste 40 åren (SCB 2021). Flertalet kommuner kämpar därför med minskande skatteintäkter och således minskande ekonomiska resurser som ska täcka kostnader för skola, vård och omsorg, infrastrukturutveckling och service. Flera studier har också visat hur skillnaderna både mellan och inom regioner har ökat gällande till exempel medelinkomst, utbildningsnivåer, ohälsa, arbetsmarknad och service under samma period. Till viss del har denna utveckling sin förklaring i den urbaniseringsprocess som har pågått sedan mitten av 1950-talet. Urbaniseringen har inte enbart inneburit att människor flyttat från landsbygden till staden, utan även att andra viktiga samhällsfunktioner och service har koncentrerats till tätorter och storstadsregioner vilket i sin tur har lett till ökad ojämlikhet mellan stad och landsbygd.

This paper shows how certain spatial logics are used to support contemporary region-building processes, and how these become taken for granted and institutionalized in specific regional settings. These spatial logics are also representative of the spatial logics dominating contemporary regionalism and affect the ways spaces and citizens are treated and valued in regional planning and policy. Few studies have shown how spatial logics are implemented, transformed and turned into policy across a wider set of regions. Exemplified by The Scandinavian 8 Million City project, the paper shows how this regional imaginary was constructed by the project promotors using several representative spatial logics of what constitutes the best region as idealized in planning and policies.

Regional bioeconomies promote sustainable, regional economies under the auspices of EU green growth policies. Combining prospects of rural rejuvenation, sustainability and innovation, they are employed to address climate change, societal challenges, and often benefit from substantial public funds. Yet, despite public finance's key role for bio-based transitions and (regional) bioeconomies, it has received little academic attention. Framed by conceptualisations on greening finance and (sustainable) policy narratives, this paper evaluates the public finance processes of three spatially variegated regional bioeconomy developments in Europe (Finland, Sweden, Spain). It provides empirical accounts from the case study sites and contrasts their public finance narratives with sustainable bioeconomy policy trajectories employed in EU policy promotion and benchmarking. This critical questioning of the current representations of regional bioeconomies in public finance narratives portrays a problematic mismatch between the dominant selective economic features and wider EU policy aims, particularly in relation to sustainability. Accompanied by the neglect of decisive local features in these benchmarking narratives, they promote a sustainably and spatially unreflective path forward for bioeconomy policy learning and development.

Interest has grown over recent years in policy programs targeting a green, bio-based economy. In the European Union, the European Commission promotes the development of bioeconomy policy and encourages the use of biomass and waste for industrial purposes. Alongside these technical dimensions, European bioeconomy policy also promotes knowledge sharing, learning from others, and so-called ‘best practice’. Consequently, many European places and policymakers that have committed to developing a bio-based economy are now sharing their positive policy experiences. However, sharing ‘best practice’ for green economy policy programs has sometimes been described as producing oversimplified views of complex climate issues. Despite such criticisms, policymakers continue to search for and share bioeconomy policy ‘best practice’. This paper explores the development of bioeconomy policy with a focus on shareability and dissemination of ‘best practice’ in two Swedish regions, Värmland and Västerbotten. Herein, we adopt the conceptual underpinnings of urban policy mobilities to explain green policymaking, and more specifically bioeconomy policy development on a regional scale. So far, policy mobilities research has had a primarily urban focus, whereas this paper provides valuable insights into how these processes take place within regional and more peripheral settings. Thus, we seek to understand the role of ‘best practice’ in the development of regional bioeconomy policies and which elements of these policies are promoted as transferable elsewhere.

Det här policybriefet är en sammanställning över begreppet grön omställning och dess eventuella betydelse i en skoglig kontext. Som sådant är det möjligt att härleda begreppet grön omställning tillbaka till början av 2000-talet då större internationella organisationer såsom OECD,FN och EU började att använda sig av begrepp som grön tillväxt och en grön ekonomi. I samma kontext används även ofta andra begrepp såsom bioekonomi, cirkulär ekonomi och ekosystemtjänster, där till exempel skog ses som en resurs som kan ersätta fossila råvaror för att producera energi och andra produkter och material från skogsråvara i omställningen till ett fossilfritt samhälle. Så här långt har majoriteten av de initiativ och överenskommelser som syftar till en grön omställning i hög grad avsett teknologisk utveckling och innovationer inom nya eller befintliga näringar. Mer kritiska perspektiv menar att det inte är möjligt att kombinera ekonomisk tillväxt och att samtidigt värna om miljön.

I takt med att FN:s klimatpanel presenterade den senaste klimatrapporten under 2018 så har frågan om att ställa om till ett mer hållbart samhälle blivit alltmer akut och brännande. Frågan är dock hur aktörer från olika sfärer i samhället kan samarbeta och bidra med olika kunskaper i omställningen till ett mer hållbart samhälle. En aktör som i allt högre grad kommit att betonas ur ett demokratiperspektiv är civilsamhällets roll i såväl besluts-, policy- och planeringsprocesser. Samtidigt visar forskning att den kunskap som civilsamhället besitter ofta är undervärderad av beslutsfattare, även om till exempel frivilligorganisationer, föreningar av olika slag och lokala eldsjälar ofta besitter stor kunskap om till exempel lokala utvecklingsprocesser och miljöfrågor. Utifrån den här bakgrunden så har detta policybrief tagits fram som ett resultat av den delstudie som skedde inom projektet Omställning till en ansvarsfull skogligbioekonomi inom ramen för Akademin för smart specialisering på Karlstads universitet. 

En viktig slutsats som kan dras av forskningen om ekosystemtjänster är att det finns ett glapp mellan forskning och praktik. Ekosystemtjänster är i grund och botten ett teoretiskt begrepp som ännu inte implementerats fullt ut på vare sig kommunal, regional eller nationell nivå i Sverige. Trots att ekosystemtjänster ses som ett luddigt begrepp, vittnar tjänstemän från flera pågående projekt på kommunal nivå runt om i landet om att det finns klara fördelar med att använda ekosystemtjänster för att kunna kommunicera olika värden i landskapet till såväl politiker som lokalbefolkning. Därför kan ekosystemtjänster ses som ett verktyg som kan användas för att kartlägga och lyfta fram viktiga naturområden som underlag för en diskussion om hur de skall nyttjas i framtiden. Samtidigt är begreppet ekosystemtjänster omdebatterat i och med att det bygger på ett antropocentriskt synsätt på naturen, där naturen ekonomiseras. Ekosystemtjänsters värden kan dock ha olika betydelser och bör inte enbart definieras ur ett marknadsperspektiv. På så sätt kan ekosystemtjänster vara ett relevant begrepp för att kunna kommunicera olika värden i såväl stadslandskap som rena fjäll-, havs- och skogsmiljöer.  

This article aims to understand the possible preconditions for the transformation of a regional innovation system (RIS) into a quadruple and quintuple helix system applied to the development of a sustainable forestry-based bioeconomy in Värmland, Sweden. Research points to the necessity not only of further developing current innovation systems to include more actors than earlier but also of taking concern for the environment as a way towards attaining sustainability. The research was carried out in response to the need to understand he fourth helix and its role in RIS and to transform to a sustainable bioeconomy, as identified by researchers, policymakers and industry representatives. This study was inspired by participatory transdisciplinarity and a transdisciplinary research design, acknowledging the importance of a variety of actors in knowledge production from different spheres of society. Much of the empirical material gathered for this research was based on interviews and a workshop with different stakeholders. The results show that the use of a quintuple helix RIS in Värmland for the transformation to a forestry-based bioeconomy could be a possible way forward towards sustainability. The model proposes that involvement of civil society in the innovation system could contribute to a larger societal transformation that aims to change consumer behaviour, production patterns, technological developments, infrastructure, norms and values. However, the involvement of civil society in the innovation system must still be regarded as part of a vision statement in regional policy documents.

Climate change and environmental problems are becoming more complex, uncertain and multi-scalar, affecting a variety of actors and agencies. Therefore calling for a variety of knowledge’s and values in decision making processes. New forms of government and governance are being implemented and in the same time public participation in decision making processes is pointed out as a democratic right by as well environmentalist and pressure groups as in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 1998 (Reed, 2008). Further collaboration between more actors than in earlier innovation systems is pointed out as important in as well innovation policys concerning smart specialization strategies as well as in the development of a European bio economy. In the latter context the European 2012 Bio Economy Communication Strategy lifts the importance of engaging society in the transition, thereby creating a link between society and policy makers in decision making processes. Thereby, this article mainly takes its departure in the broadening field of literature around regional innovation systems and the concepts of quadruple and quintuple helix in a forestry bio economy in Sweden. More specifically it aims to examine the preconditions of a possible transition into a forestry based bio economy by the move from a triple helix to a quadruple helix system in the region of Värmland in Sweden. Which actors are involved in the current innovation system and how is environment included in the transition?

One point of departure is where the European Commission in 2012 established a strategy for the development of a European bio economy; Innovating for sustainable growth: A bio economy for Europe, aiming to transform the European economy into becoming more sustainable by the: production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into value added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy (The European Commission, 2012:3). The European Union thereby sees the bio economy as one possible way of transforming society into becoming fossil free, creating a more sustainable European economy. Further the European Commission’s imposition on European regions to develop smart specialization strategies so called RIS3 – Research and innovation smart specialization strategies (Aranguren & Wilson 2013), have led to an extension of earlier regional innovation systems. Regions around Europe now develop smart specialization strategies to draw on their own unique resources to withhold funds from the European structural funds (Aranguren & Wilson 2013; Carayannis & Rakhmatullin 2014).

In Sweden discussions on regional identity and regional belonging have become more and more integrated with perspectives of the meaning of culture and local communities as important for regional development and growth. In local, regional and national policies cultural diversity is emphasized as a potential for development and growth. Sweden is today a multi-cultural society where its citizens have backgrounds from all over the world. However, there is a distance in regional politics between policies of cultural diversity for local and regional development and the actual citizens. It is therefore not clear how policies of cultural diversity are to be applied in practical regional planning. Research shows that immigrants in Sweden often have a feeling of exclusion and that they do not belong there and that they aren’t accepted as they are. There seems to be a gap between policies and the actual situation in everyday life of inhabitants in Swedish regions.

Research on sense of place and migration is extensive, but there is still not much done on the influence of place in relation to issues of integration. The meaning and importance of place has not been emphasized enough in immigration studies. Therefore, this paper will – from a Swedish perspective - discuss the sense of place and belonging related to a person’s identity and background, with the aim to contribute to an understanding of who feel belongingness where. This discussion is mainly based on a survey conducted in the region of Värmland in Sweden. The results show that persons with a Swedish background feel more at home in the place where they live, in the municipality where they live, as well as in the region of Värmland, than persons with a foreign background. Not surprisingly people having lived more than ten years or their whole life at the same place feel more at home in as well the local, regional as the national level. This can in turn be related to Swedish integration policy and the situation of immigrants in Sweden experiencing a sense of exclusion and thereby a lack of sense of belonging to a certain place. But we can also see that other factors, like if you live in the city or in the countryside), are important for a sense of place and feeling at home. Our results will be discussed in relation to issues of urban, regional and social sustainable development.

I projektet ”Omställning till bioekonomi, smart specialiseringoch quadruple helix” var ett av målen att skapa förståelse för den fjärde helixen i regionala innovationssystem inom ramen ör en skoglig bioekonomi i Värmland. Den fjärde helixen bör ses som representanter för det civila samhället såsom ideella organisationer och föreningar. Samtidigt är det inte helt tydligt vad som menas med det civila samhället och vad dess roll ska vara. Viktiga lärdomar från projektet är därför att det inledningsvis är viktigt att identifiera vilka representanterna för det civila samhället är och vilken roll de ska spela i det regionala innovationssystemet. Vidare så måste också ett gemensamt syfte för processen arbetas fram. Varför ska frivilligorganisationer och föreningar delta och samverka med övriga aktörer i innovationssystemet och med vilket syfte? I vissa sammanhang lyfts det civila samhället fram ur ett medborgarperspektiv, vilket i grund och botten betonar ett mer demokratiskt perspektiv, där tidigare exkluderade grupper inkluderas i innovationsprocessen. Det finns också ett mer tillväxtorienterat perspektiv där det civila samhället jämställs med kunder och eller konsumenter. Ytterligare ett perspektiv är så kallad användardriven innovation, där representanter för det civila samhället deltar tidigt i innovationsprocessen och således bidrar till utvecklandet av nya innovationer. Det är därför viktigt att lyfta fram betydelsen av olika aktörer inom det civila samhället och att tydliggöra vilka roller detcivila samhället kan spela i det specifika regionala innovationssystemet innan ett samarbete initieras. Forskning visar också att ett väl utvecklat triple helix system som bygger på samverkan mellan akademi, näringsliv och myndigheter inte nödvändigtvis lägger grunden för inkluderandet av en fjärde helix och en vidgning mot quadruple helix.

In the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy in Europe several strategies and documents can be related to the transformation. Smart specialization is one way in which the European Union aims to develop smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, while the member states and regions are required to develop smart specialization strategies. These strategies are used to highlight and identify regional strengths and assets, thus developing strategies to strengthen the competitiveness of the European regions. The aim is to create a competitive, innovative European market and to generate green and sustainable growth through the development of so called RIS3 – Regional Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization. In relation to this development many regions work with the development of regional bioeconomies. This will be managed through using renewable resources in combination with higher demand son sustainability, biodiversity and environmental protection in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and food production.The aim is to transform the current economy into an economy based on renewable resources through innovation and new technological solutions. This policy brief discuss this development in relation to a widening of regional innovationsystems (RIS), such as triple helix based on partnership and collaboration between academia, government and industry into a quadruple helix system. Quadruple helix also include a fourth actor group, namely civil society as a fourth helix. However, the significance of what civil society can be varies both in policy contexts and in academia.

Den här avhandlingen tar sin utgångspunkt i olika uttryck av samtida regionaliseringsprocesser och regionalism(er). Studien belyser två olika regionaliseringskontexter i form av Värmland och Åttamiljonerstaden. Två i grund och botten mycket olika regioner. Värmland utgör en subnationell administrativ region och därigenom ett exempel och ett uttryck för en decentralisering av statliga uppgifter rörande regional utveckling och tillväxt till den regionala nivån. Åttamiljonerstaden är en imaginär gränsöverskridande region som sträcker sig från Oslo i norr, över Göteborg och Malmö till Köpehamn i söder, där målet är att skapa en sammanhängande och funktionell arbetsmarknadsregion.

Trots de båda regionernas olikheter, så kan de båda studerade regionerna ses som ett uttryck för en alltmer normativ policyagenda som grundas på begrepp som globalisering, internationalisering och en konkurrensutsatt marknad. Detta har lett fram till olika former av rumslig strategisk planering som ska stärka respektive regions konkurrenskraft med olika medel. I sin tur leder detta till att olika diskursiva kunskapsrationaliteter om vad som utgör den ”attraktiva regionen” i form av nya styrningsformer, regional organisering och den gode regionmedborgaren implementeras och institutionaliseras i respektive regional kontext. 

Since the 1990s and the headways of neoliberalism, the city is seen as the agent of creativity and innovation. In Sweden, the devolution of state power to the regional and city-level has implied enhanced focus on the city as the ideal entity for planning. These neoliberal policies have also led to increased urban and rural gentrification, and as a result widening gaps both within and between cities, regions and rural areas. At the same time wider neoliberal discourses and urban as well as regional policies promote city-regions, leading to the marginalization of rural areas in both policy and planning. Within policy circles, the countryside is seen mainly as an arena and resource for leisure and tourism, reinforcing images of rural areas as incidental or ancillary spaces. However we argue that humans are not passive receivers of policies about what constitutes the good life. Humans are landscapers in both an individual and collective sense. We experience and shape the world through the embodiment of practices and meanings constituted relationally with both other humans as well as the more-than-human world. The article discusses the gaps between current ideals of city and regional planning and the more-than-representational landscapes in the life and dwelling of human beings. We argue that regional and national Swedish polices are contested, especially in relation to notions of what constitutes the good life in rural areas.

The aim of this presentation is to discuss how the ongoing decentralization processes of the state transforms and shapes regional territories and regional politics and policies. The discourse of enhanced competition between different places has led to new territorial strategies aiming at enhancing the competitiveness of places, both at a local, regional and national level.  This has resulted in the implementation of urban regeneration policies where different place marketing techniques are used to strengthen a place brand or a place image. To a great extent these policies work in favor of supporting larger metropolitan areas, both as growth engines but also as representative and image building for a larger region. Harvey (1989) calls this shift from a state Keynesianism building on convergence between weaker and stronger regions, to new policies supporting economic growth on the local, regional and national level entrepreneurial urban governance. This entrepreneurial urban governance rather supports urban metropolitan areas, than less economic developed regions. It is the city-regions that are seen as able to compete with other regions all over the world, where the importance of being a “global city”, represented by cosmopolitanism, culture, diversity, internationalization and most important as a financial center and as a headquarter for international firms that are promoted. These processes are characterized by market driven growth, flexibility, competitiveness but also larger economic disparities between regions and cities both nationally and internationally.

To adapt to the competitiveness discourse new territories and spaces are being created.  The concept of urban regeneration of a city or in this case a region to better its reputation has led to a shift away from being a provider welfare services to the importance of being someone in an international market by changing its image and reputation. In some cases by focusing on a larger urban area to create a different image as a metropolitan region represented by cosmopolitanism, culture, diversity but also by being innovative, learning and entrepreneurial. Policies and planning are enhancing urban economic development, by investments in infrastructure, new shopping areas, new neighborhoods, flagship projects, monuments but also by privatization of welfare services and public space. As a result there has been an increase in different place marketing techniques that aiming to better the image and the place brand of a certain region to attract investments, firms, visitors and new inhabitants to the region. Capital and investments are no longer as place bound as before which increase the competition between different places and a necessity to be as attractive as possible in an international market. New solutions such as New Public Management are therefore challenging more traditional political systems in the democracies of the western world. Public administration have more similarities with how firms and businesses are run by being dependent on the market, rather than being a provider of public services, democratic responsibility and public participation. The competitiveness discourse shapes territory and space, creating new and complex networks of relations between multiple actors in society, both private and public. This in turn makes it difficult for citizens to affect politics and the creation of space leaving little or no room for marginalized groups in society to participate. 

Based on two separately case studies of two essentially different regions, one administrative region, Värmland in Sweden and one informal, functional region “The 8 million city”, stretching from Oslo in the north to Copenhagen in the south, the practices  and techniques used in urban regeneration projects on the regional level will be presented.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how different kinds of representations of regions form part of the institutionalization and creation of new and older regions of today. As a result of the discourses of new regionalism, we see ongoing processes where culture and identity are seen as important parts to create strong and competitive regions, which have become more and more important for peripheral and weaker regions around Europe. Regional culture and identities are seen as part of different soft factors that are seen as strengthening the regional level and in that way contribute to the attractiveness and competitiveness of the region.  It is also believed that different soft factors will strengthen the inner unity in the region and thereby lead to further development. Culture and identity have to a greater extent than before been given an economic value. By enhancing the distinctive attributes and features of a region such as culture, it is said to be more competitive in an international and national context. Different representations of the regions are used to create an image of the regions. This connection between regions and regional features could be seen as a result of a political agenda where it is the uniqueness of the region that is enhanced to create an idea of the region as a base for identity construction. By creating this attractiveness within the regions in different contexts, it exist several different representations of the regions in the same time. This altogether creates the identity of the region. Earlier it was possible to say that the marketing of regions and places mainly aimed to attract visitors, but today it is rather about attracting visitors, business, investors, new inhabitants and in scarce regions even to keep the inhabitants. 

There is also an emphasis on cooperation across borders between regions in different border areas between the member states in the EU. But in the same time the regions are also seen as competitors both nationally and internationally. Different regional policy programs enhance the importance to create strong, attractive and competitive regions. But what does this actually mean? By studying different representations of two peripheral border regions in Europe, Värmland in Sweden, and Hedmark in Norway, the aim is to show different representations of how the discourse of new regionalism affects different regional policies in scarcer regions in Europe, mainly with focus on different ways of branding regions.