In recent years the entire legal and regulatory basis of the Portuguese Planning System underwent an ambitious and far reaching reform. However, today like in the past, the major effort in the production of new legislation and regulation was not accompanied by a similar effort in the production of planning doctrine, here understood as a vast and coherent set of planning policies and implementation measures, able to improve, from a technical and scientific point of view, and under an evidence based approach, not only the quality of planning practice but also, and foremost,its proactive role, incorporating new and emerging topics and societal challenges and concerns, promoting change and opening new transition avenues into the future. This proactive role of planning, advocated here, contrasts with its traditional conservative standing in Portugal (and in other EU Member States), of looking backwards and passively accommodating, if not slowing down, change and the social and physical reform of our cities and metropolises.   Planning can, and should, constitute a transformative device in our cities in Europe and elsewhere, particularly in the present times and with a view into the long term. Indeed, current changes seem far more deep within the existing urban tissues experiencing profound recompositions of functions and activities, than in physical terms, strictly speaking,where past investments in infrastructures and in the built environment seemed to have exceeded the real demand and generated a surplus of the building stock that, some years later, still remains partially empty or underused.   The Spatial Planning for Change (SPLACH) programme draws on some of the main areas of knowledge of thre eresearch centres CITTA, DINÂMIA'CET-IUL and GOVCOPP. Two to three main areas of knowledge were identified for each centre: post carbon cities, transformative policies, spatial planning, socio-technical system, food security,services of general interest, tourism and modeli...

The proposed RURACTION research and training network focuses on problems in structurally weak rural regions in Europe and on the impact of social entrepreneurship regarding the development of innovative solutions to problems in rural regions.

Cresaçor (Cooperativa Regional de Economia Solidária, CRL), as Microcredit Agency for the Region of the Azores, developed an evaluation study of the policy measure Microcredit known as Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Microcredit in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. Beyond the evaluation of this policy measure, the study developed also a self-evaluation exercise concerning the role of the Agency in implementing the policy measure. Dinâmia-CET supported this evaluation and self-evaluation exercises.   The study showed: some loss of focus in targeting, high dependency on private banking criteria in acessing finance, new businesses highly dependent on past professional experience, low participation of young people without previous professional experience and strong role of informal relations in developing the business activity. The study also showed that the information concerning this policy measure is not widespread among the diferente sectors of government and relevant organizations as well as in the different islands.         Concerning policy recommendations the study stressed: distinguishing four phases for implementing the measure (animation, ‘skills balance’, business plan and access to finance),  widening support measures to potential mothers facilitating entrepreneurship among women and developing awareness and spreading information about the policy measure among relevant organizations. The sudy also recommended to increase the role of local governments in facilitating formal procedures and access to space.

The ACA Project (Academy for Cohesion in the Azores) (www.aca-ct.pt) concerns experimenting with ‘Knowledge Alliances’ in developing transdisciplinary research with  ‘Cohesion Agents’ organized in ‘Communities of Practice’. The MASIS Report emphasized potential limits of conventional research and claimed for research aiming at problem solving. Building ‘Knowledge Alliances’ was already introduced by Europe 2020. The unprecedented complexity of the problems of our time shows the limits of more current practices aiming at problem-solving. Planning related action for social innovation and resilience requires both excellent and relevant scientific knowledge. Research is required aiming at clarifying the conditions to be met in order social innovation to become possible (‘conditions of possibility’) and transdisciplinary research aiming at its usefulness in contributing to societal capacity building for resilience in times of uncertainty and structural change. Taking stock of accumulated past experience based on European Experimental Programmes aiming at innovation in public policies (Poverty III, URBAN, LEADER, EQUAL, etc.), the Academy for Cohesion in the Azores (ACA) was created in the framework of the Agency for the Territorial Cohesion of Azores (AGECTA). The ISCTE-IUL and DINÂMIA'CET-IUL are involved in a first experimental project aiming at capacity building of ‘Cohesion Agents’ belonging to diverse organizations and being in charge of developing ‘territorial animation’ efforts in ‘fragile’ areas. ACA facilitates their autonomous organizing on a territorial basis (‘Local Centres for Territorial Animation’) (CLAT) as well as their interacting within and among the CLAT eventually belonging to different islands. The development of the work is supported by web based tools as it is the case of the CIARIS Platform (www.ciaris-ct.pt) early developed by the International Labour Office (ILO) and now being managed by AGECTA following a specific agreement.

The ‘Community of Practice on Inclusive Entrepreneurship’ was created in the framework of Equal Community Initiative to help capacity building on the basis of European best practice in the field. Unemployment is still a serious problem in many Member States and the challenge of job creation is urgent and complex. New solutions are needed and stimulating ‘inclusive entrepreneurship’ among ‘non-traditional’ entrepreneurs is a possible contribution to job creation. Testing the CoPIE Tool in Portugal helped to make priorities clear in designing measures for ‘inclusive entrepreneurship’: contemporary existential conditions among the members of target groups do not favour the previous existence of business ideas, animation efforts play a crucial role; these kinds of animation efforts require a specific quality and adequate skills; also public policies need to involve policy integration and multi-level governance for flexible territorial context-dependent response; depending on their own skills in labour intensive production processes and trying to reach adequate income with strong capital shortages (microcredit), ‘inclusive entrepreneurship’ requires adequate business and management strategies different from those needed by conventional capital intensive and technology based small firms; the challenges of ‘innovation’, business skills and sales have to be different though crucial for survival and growth and survival require post-start-up support requiring specific quality challenges and adequate skills; if governance and policy integration, social relations, pre-start-up, post-start-up and the support to commercialisation all play a critical role in making ‘inclusive entrepreneurship’ concrete, the identification of the organisations best prepared to play this role requires specific attention in order to meet the challenges of organisational innovation and to meet skills gaps considered to be critical in pre-start-up and post-start-up business support. The need for urgent...

Portrail of the concept of creative city in articulation with the ongoing debates over the role of cultural activities and creativity in urban revitalization and the fostering of cities’ competitiveness. Based upon this framework, we will make an in-depth diagnosis of the Cascais municipality regarding its potential in these areas. Our methodological approach was based on strategic planning, based on a participation-action rationale in order to mobilize the different actors and improve the establishment of partnerships with local agents.