Recipe book for regional development: How to improve your community?

This report brings together practical examples and shared insights from across the Nordic region from projects and activities conducted by Nordregio, the Nordic Cross-border Committees and the Nordic Atlantic Cooperation (NORA) as part of the Nordic Cooperation Programme For Regional Development And Planning 2021–2024 (RCP). It highlights how cooperation and mutual learning can help address common challenges in the region—from demographic shifts to the green transition.

What can Nordic municipalities and communities learn from contemporaries across the region? How can potentially transformational policies, strategies and initiatives be successfully transferred from one local context to another? Such are the questions underlying this report.

• The first part “23 recipes for regional development” consists of 23 short chapters, each of which describes a project. These projects were carried out variously by Nordregio in conjunction with Nordic regional ministries, by one of the CBCs, or by NORA.
• The second part “Story map of inspirational cases” gives details of the interactive Story map that has been created based on the 113 case studies.
• The third part “Regional relevance and Nordic added value” then pulls back to explore the cross-cutting areas of regional relevance that emerged from the 23 projects, before summarising them in the form of some key takeaways. It then proceeds to supplement this analysis by applying a similar lens to 113 inspirational case studies also conducted as part of the programme. Having done so, this part concludes by expanding on the nature of Nordic added value.
• The fourth part “Topic search mapping tool” outlines the tool that encompasses both the 113 cases and the 23 recipes.
• Supplementing the above, the fifth part “About the Nordic Cooperation Programme” provides further details on the institutions involved in implementing the RCP.