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

This paper on Europe as a sustainable economy and its policy for peripheral areas contributes to the analysis on the relationship between Transition Management and new approaches to regional development. It follows that regions are different ecosystems which require not only conventional macroeconomic visions for development processes, but also a precise spatial approach based on different levels of geographical aggregation. The physical environment, therefore, becomes a useful element not only to analyze the transition mechanisms, but also as a constitutive part of economic, social and environmental changes in the short, medium, and long term. A number of interesting aspects are examined and the concept of Living Labs as a modus operandi of Transition Management is indicated according to the Quintuple Helix model, which requires large-scale public participation, both in the structuring of problems as well as the dynamic change in political agendas. The authors underline how, in an era of constant transformation, ecosystem management contributes to ecological and economic resilience as well as social flexibility needed to deal with and challenge the economic crisis as well as the mistrust that citizens have towards the European institutions. This paper, founded on an the ecosystem approach aims to contribute to the debate on the review of the European Cohesion Policy