In the frame of the EU-SPI Pilot Project, ZSI is supporting a regional partnership event in the frame of the European Week of Regions and Cities (https://europa.eu/regions-and-cities/): Measuring social progress in European regions and cities.

The overall aim of the workshop was to generate new knowledge through the application of indicator frameworks, which are measuring human well-being and social progress at the international, European and regional level. Different stakeholders (policy makers, researchers, etc.) of and beyond the “EU-SPI Project – Pilot Project on the Social Progress Index” shared the experiences they have made during the testing of the "EU Social Progress Indicator" and other indicators (e.g. the Regional Well Being Index of the OECD) in different European cities and regions. In the beginning of the workshop, some inputs were given in order to set the frame and to convey the central aims of the session. The essence of the workshop was the interactive exchange of the workshop participants by focusing on their experiences with indicator frameworks along with considering issues, taken up by the beyond-GDP initiative. The central questions of the session included: 

•    Do the results of the tested indicator frameworks translate the reality on regional level? 
•    Are the tested indicators useful in monitoring social policies? 
•    Can the results help to improve (regional) policy making and multilevel-governance? 
•    Should other criteria or factors be added to these indicators? 
•    How can the different policy levels interrelate to influence / improve social progress?
•    How should the existing measurement of social progress be strengthened in order to ensure its more useful uptake by the regional governments?

In addition, the workshop also dealt with the elaboration of proposals, where to identify resources within current and future cohesion policy programmes. Moreover, indications were identified on how to strengthen the existing measurement of social progress to ensure the more useful uptake by the regional governments.

The event took place on 9 October 2019, between 14:30 - 17:00 

It was organised by the pilot regions of the project Eastern Slovenia Region, Western Greece Region, Bucharest-Ilvof, City of Umea - in the format of a regional partnership and with the support of the EU SPI Pilot project.

Venue of the event: Permanent Representation of the Republic of Slovenia to the EU, Rue du Commerce 44, 1000 Brussels

Further information is available here!