Welcome to the web pages of this Economic and Social Research Council funded project. This is one of several projects funded under the ESRC's programme on 'One Europe or Several'.

This project aims to examine the extent and determinants of differential regional economic performance in Europe.

There has been much recent debate over how we can explain the different performance of European regional economies. Much of this debate has been unnecessarily narrow in its focus on 'success stories' of regions, firms and sectors and in its failure to specify the precise links between firm-level governance and the institutional contexts within which firms are embedded. This project therefore has three main aims: (1) to explore more fully the extent to which there has been a convergence across European regions in the performance and governance of firms and sectors by focusing upon both core growth regions and peripheral areas; (2) to explore the links between the corporate and institutional practices that might explain these trends; and (3) to examine the extent to which 'successful' practices in determining regional, sectoral and firm performance are transferable across European regions which are increasingly diverse in their economic and institutional structures.

The research is comparative, draws upon a range of methodologies, and brings together a team of researchers in three UK institutions with colleagues and practitioners in Europe. The project explores the dimensions of economic change in regions across four European countries with different forms of governance and economic structures; two of which are European Union Member States with long-standing regional problems (Italy and the UK) and two of which are Central European economies undergoing different experiences of transformation (Poland and Slovakia). The project involves aggregate level data analysis to examine the performance of regional economies and sectors as a basis for the selection of two case study regions in each country for further investigation. Selected regions include dynamic metropolitan regions and less successful peripheral regions. Within each region the research involves (1) an analysis of the structure and dynamics of a sample of enterprises selected from five main sectors; and (2) in-depth interviews with key informants in a sample of the surveyed firms and in regional development institutions to examine the extent to which firms and institutions interrelate in the production of different levels of regional economic performance in each study country.

The project is based at the Centre on European Political Economy, Sussex European Institute and is managed by Mick Dunford email: m.f.dunford@sussex.ac.uk. Project personnel include: Adrian Smith, Ray Hudson and David Sadler (Durham), and Jane Hardy (Hertfordshire).