Active regions - land shapes the future

"Regions Active - Land Shapes Future" was a model program carried out by the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMVEL), which ran from September 2001 to December 2005, with follow-up funding (phase 2) until the end of 2007.

Funding and Financing

In two selection rounds, 18 model regions were selected, which received appropriate funding for the years 2002 to 2005 . The funding took place in two phases, whereby in phase 2 the previously developed approaches were to be consolidated in order to build up structures that should remain in place even after the funding expires. Phase 2 funding expired at the end of 2007.

A follow-up project with similar objectives was the Ministry's model project “LandZukunft”, which ran from September 2011 to December 2014, in which four model regions with similar objectives were funded, although these did not show any continuity with the previous funding project.

Content and objectives

The main topics of the model program "Active Regions - Land Shapes Future" launched by the then Federal Minister Renate Künast were sustainable regional development , the maintenance and creation of regional value chains , the safeguarding and creation of new jobs, relationships between the city and the surrounding area , consumer protection , the renewable energy and conservation of nature and landscape.

Evaluation and accompanying research

The implementation of phase 1 of the project was scientifically accompanied by a network of research institutions, including the Institute for Rural Structural Research at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the University of Hagen. One of the aims of the research was to compare the results of the funding program with those of the EU-wide LEADER program . The evaluation showed, among other things, that within the framework of the funding, 763 jobs were created in the regions and a further 701 were maintained (on average 81 per region). In the model regions, a total of around 72.9 million euros were approved up to 2005 in the context of 996 individual projects. Almost 68 percent of the funds (approx. 49.3 million euros) were financed from the funding program. The co-financing from the regions amounted to 4.3 million euros public and 19.3 million euros private funds. In addition to the funding amount, follow-up investments totaling around 83 million euros were initiated, 57 million of which were private funds. However, the researchers rated the non-monetary effects as particularly positive, such as the stronger networking of regional actors, the improvement of the regional working atmosphere and the creation of a high-quality regional range of products and services. Since phase 2 of the project was not evaluated in a comparable way, permanent effects beyond the funding are not known in detail.

The 18 model regions

literature

Sebastian Elbe, Günter Kroës, Arthur Benz, Robert Lukesch, Katrin Weiß, Michael Böcher, Max Krott, Anna Meincke, Ute Middelmann, Harald Payer, Jutta Rabenau, Sebastian Tränkner: Accompanying research “Regions Active”. Synthesis report and recommendations for action. Universitätsdrucke series, Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2007. doi: 10.17875 / gup2007-260 . ISBN 978-3-938616-92-5 .