The purpose of the chapter is to identify factors which had an impact on the change of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship development path as well as to indicate barriers limiting further development. The article is based on a desk research, statistical data analysis as well as structured in-depth interviews conducted with representatives of regional and local authorities, scientifi c units and business-related institutions. The conclusions may be of interest to both researchers of the path dependency concept, and representatives of institutions involved in formulation and implementation of regional policy.

The Reduction of Economic Dualism of Mazowieckie Voivodeship in 2007-2015 Using Regional Operation Programme for the Mazowieckie Voivodeship 2007-2013.The existence of social and economic dualism is widely discussed in numerous regions of Poland and Europe. This results from the natural structure of a region, which usually consists of one or two growth centres and peripheral areas. It leads to the emergence of inequalities, which cause a political pressure to redistribute income in order to ensure sustainable development. This discussion is particularly important in the Mazovian Voivodeship. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop the existing findings concerning the social and economic dualism of the region. The main aim specified in the Voivodeship Development Strategy is to eliminate spatial inequalities. This paper is an attempt to broaden the knowledge on reducing the dualism in the voivodeship resulting from the implementation of the Regional Operational Programme for the Mazovian Voivodeship 2007-2013, which was one of the most crucial development tools. The analysis was conducted in terms of territory, sectors and the labour market.

The goal of presented paper is to show growing importance of active public policy for socio-economic development of Polish regions. There is a description of general context of programming socio-economic development in Poland. After accession to EU in 2004 Poland developed set of programming documents on central level. Last document Responsible Development Strategy until 2030 was approved in 2017. In following part of that study there are presented issues of voivodeship development strategies and regional innovation strategies. Intraregional policy managed by self-governments in context of innovativeness is also tackled. In fi nal part conclusions and recommendations concerning regional policy are proposed.

‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ methods in analyses of territorial structures’. This article refers to two distinct approaches to investigations of territorial structures and their changes: the ‘intuitive’ of ‘soft’ approach and a more rigid, formalized or ‘hard’ one. The examples of analyzing the regional patterns in Poland over a almost 40 year span are called to illustrate these relations between two methodological standpoints. The conclusion states that both of them are valid and useful, however their strengths can be fully exposed when both are applied in an comprehensive way, supporting each other in a difficult process of investigation multidimensional and dynamic changes of the social territorial systems.

Cohesion Policy of European Union after 2020. After accession to EU in 2004 European cohesion policy become key source of financing regional development in Poland. In first part of this paper regional context of EU cohesion policy is presented. In second part issues of current architecture of cohesion policy for 2014-2020 are tackled, also importance of Europe 2020 strategy is shown. In third part expected changes in European cohesion policy post 2020 and key outlines concerning negotiation position of Poland are developed.

Presented paper adresses issue of key research areas, which are important for development of backward regions in Poland. Proposed areas of priority research activities concentrates on: building resilience of regional structures on socio-economic crises; using megatrends impact on development paths; implementing public intervention generating economic growth; developing territorial keys for development; utilising capacity of cities, especially biggest; increasing quality of public management, strengthening of innovativeness and competitiveness of EU regions and cities; using better social and cultural dimension of socio-economic development; increasing potential of cross-border cooperation and using new development concepts, monitoring of socio-economic development through objective measuring of levels and paths. For Poland It is very important to use research activities to support process of closing gap with more affl uent EU regions.

The paper presents the history of the development path of the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship. The aim of the study was to identify factors conducive to and restrict regional transformation in Warmia and Mazury and to verify the development path of the voivodeship. According to the study, the factors that positively infl uenced the development of the region in the recent period were, among others: EU funds and natural resources that form the basis of a regional economy. The factors that inhibit the development of the region include, among other:. lack of trust, intensifi cation of competition and low transport accessibility of the voivodeship.

The study presents a change in the innovation model and a change of development path towards new industries and modernization of traditional industries in the Pomeranian Voivodship. The characteristics of the region and the characteristics of the regional innovation system based on statistical data, existing research, analysis and interviews with representatives of regional and local authorities, scientists and entrepreneurs of the voivodship were presented. The factors that preceded the change of the innovation model and direct causes of change were identifi ed aa well as the impact of institutional factors and the barriers to the development of the voivodship.

The study presents a change of innovation model in the highly developed region of the European Union Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italy. The paper presents the innovation system and the outline of the region’s economic history, as well as the factors that preceded the change in innovation model, the direct causes of the change, and the impact of institutional factors as well as the development barriers. The analyzes were based on interviews with 14 representatives of regional and local authorities, innovation and entrepreneurship support institutions, universities, R&D units and a cluster from the region, as well as statistical data and source material.

In 1994-2000 Galicia region was among the weakest regions with a GDP per capita below the median of the European countries, that gained a strong increase in GDP in subsequent years. Thus, the aim of the article is to identify factors which had an impact on the change of Galicia’s development path as well as to indicate barriers limiting further development. The article is based on a desk research, statistical data analysis as well as structured in-depth interviews conducted with representatives of regional and local authorities, scientifi c units and business-related institutions. The findings show that there was no shock that could become a direct cause for a change in the innovation process model of Galicia. The success of the transformation could be seen in attracting automotive and shipbuilding industries decades ago and the creation of a strong knowledge base. The case study of Galicia shows that even with a diffi cult history and only a few pillars of the economy, it is possible to grow faster than other regions in Europe.

This chapter provides a quantitative analysis to identify weak regions that have changed the innovation model. The analysis was carried out at the beginning of the project, in 2015, when only data on GDP per capita for the EU regions was available until 2011. It was designed to identify regions that have changed the innovation model for their in-depth qualitative research, that is to prepare case studies. To indicate the development paths of European regions, a comparative analysis of means was prepared. Innovation models and their change were indicated by clusters analysis. In addition, an econometric analysis of growth factors in the EU regions covering data on GDP per capita in the EU regions in 2014 was carried out in 2017.

The aim of this paper is to show importance of european cohesion policy on development trajectories of Polish regions after accession to EU in 2004. Following issues are tackled in paper: territorial elements of new paradigm of EU regional policy, evidence of EU assistance to less developed regions in Poland, cohesion patterns in Poland, impact of European cohesion policy on trajectories development of polish regions.

The paper presents the research concept and the key questions the team put forward during the implementation of the project entitled ‘Changing innovation processes models: a chance to break out of dependency paths for less developed regions’. In this chapter, research hypotheses, key concepts concerning the theory of path dependence, a review of the enablers and barriers in shaping development paths regarding the individual parts of the research project are indicated. There are also references to public policy proposals that can support the development of the peripheral paths of the peripheral regions as well as future research concepts of this issue.

Urban regeneration is driven by many different engines. These engines, however, in some circumstances may appear to turn to either a success or failure factor. In this context, it is appropriate to analyse how factors that serve the regeneration process are affected by embedding research in a particular paradigm set by the theories of so called “regional development”. The choice of these concepts analysed in the article was the result of literature review. The article consists of four parts. The first part defines the development factors and shows how the concentration of negative phenomena in degraded areas may inhibit their optimal use in the context of the city as a whole. Two subsequent chapters analyse how major theories of regional development picture external and internal factors that influence the development of a specific territory. Then, in the summary the author discusses, how main urban and regional development theories reflect the rationale for mitigating barriers in using local development factors as real driving forces of urban regeneration.

Considering the increasing role of cities throughout the world and in Europe, the European Union regulations on cohesion policy that are binding in the 2014–2020 programme period have foreseen the need to introduce a separate intervention dedicated to cities and their functional areas. However, the implementation of these solutions did not come without certain problems. They referred both to the process of institutionalising co-operation and to the realisation of projects. Also in Poland, Integrated Territorial Investments have not gone beyond co-operation for the absorption of EU funding so far, which demonstrates doubtlessly that their potential still remains unexploited. Thus, a discussion on both the positive and negative aspects of the implementation of ITIs is necessary. Poland, as the largest beneficiary of the Cohesion Policy, has a wide experience, which might provide valuable information on that matter. The aim of the paper is to present these experiences and to provide conclusions for the regional policy.

For a long time creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurship have been at the heart of studies on economic growth of regions and cities. In the paper the three notions are scrutinised together to propose conceptual approach to establishing research and development pathways, based upon three-stage identification of: research problems, project patterns and relational mechanisms. The paper is concluded with a 63 Box – the approach helping to navigate throughout project preparation phase.

The contemporary world is marked by clear disproportions in terms of living, working and wage. This problem also applies to Poland, including the layout designated by cities. The quantitative analysis carried out proves that the identified disproportions in the development potential have a relatively permanent character, which gives them structural attribute. In this context, the desirable effectiveness of development policy (subordinate to the vision and funds of EU cohesion policy) becomes highly questionable. Today’s economic inclusion is a serious challenge to the failure of recognized development policies. The shaping of the socio-economic order of the state requires a new look at local development, starting from a reliable diagnosis, part of which is this study, to bold and real visions.

There are more and more new development challenges emerging in Polish cities and regions recently. Because of those challenges we can observe an increase of the role of cities and associated environments. The concept of cities’ impact on the environment is a result of many processes, such as: suburbanization, reurbanization, increasing population mobility, development of transport systems, innovation, or entrepreneurship. A city is a complex entity, it is a subject to dynamic changes, to understand which we need interdisciplinary knowledge or the combination of many different approaches along with an attempt to draw many conclusions. We can find numerous theoretical examples describing city-regional environment relations in the literature. In general, these models explain the relationship between economically strong cities (metropolis) and the regions. However, there is not much literature and research explaining the nature and strength of relationships with medium-sized cities. There are also very few ideas for developing the potential of medium-sized cities in polish national policy. The aim of the article is to present disproportions in the development of medium-sized cities in voivodships of Eastern Poland in 2010-2017. The author will also present the possibility of using a synthetic measure to assess and recognize the spatial diversity of medium-sized cities development.

In the heterogeneous economic space, big cities are development poles that are usually characterized by the best conditions for running a business and the highest level and living conditions. Their role in development processes is the subject of many discussions. On 23 October 2017, at the invitation of the Mayor of Cracow, J. Majchrowski, an external Plenary meeting of the Committee for Spatial Development of the Polish National Academy of Sciences was held in Cracow, the aim of which was to discuss the role of big cities in Poland›s socio-economic development. This article presents the author›s opinions in a synthetic way, presenting the most important issues raised by him during the panel on the importance of Polish metropolises in shaping the development potential of the country and the region. In addition to the fundamental terminological and problematic discussion, the article describes the experience of Poznań as an agglomeration signifi cantly aff ecting the development of the region, formulating in the summary recommendations referring to the practice of regional policy.

During the last decades we observe growing importance of cities for socio-economic development, what concern especially larger cities. Currently patterns of socio-economic processes are very diff erent from those registered at the end of XX century. An important role in revival of cities played cohesion policy of European Union. Poland is an example of very well structured settlement system what could be used as an asset to avoid medium development trap for polish economy. In Poland issues of urban policy formulation are much better addressed in last generation of development strategies on central and regional levels.

Clusters belong to the regional innovation system, which led to the formulation and implementation of the cluster-based policy in many countries. The positive impact of clusters on the competitiveness of regions was confirmed by empirical studies. Absence of clusters means retardation in a regional development. The implementation of cluster policy supporting coopetition into the scope of principled regional policy assumptions seems urgent. In this way effective conditions for the formation of growth poles around industries specific for a given region will be developed and, consequently, the economic specialization of individual regions will be achieved. Observation of the benefits resulting from the functioning of clusters in the region, taking into account their possible negative impact, will allow to determine the specificity of regional development policy based on clusters. These problems indicated above are the subject of this study, based on the Polish and foreign literature available on the subject employing the desk research method.

The aim of the article is to present the role of tourism as a smart specialization, and in particular health tourism in strengthening regional development processes on the example of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. The first part of the article presents the ideas of smart specialization as a concept of stimulating innovative development with a particular focus on tourism in regional innovation strategies. The second part of the article focuses on the uniqueness of natural resources in the context of the spa tourism development potential in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. The third part presents quantitative data characterizing tourism in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. While the fourth part presents the effects of cooperation between entrepreneurs and expert and university employees who, while creating innovations, solve the problems of entrepreneurs, thus contributing to the development of tourism and the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. Finally, final conclusions and summary are presented.

The aim of the paper is to elaborate hypotheses concerning path development of regions and breaking out of existing paths, with emphasis on less developed regions. The findings show that changing the development paths may be caused mainly by evolutionary process and shocks play rather substitutional role in this phenomenon. Also, the higher a region is exposed and aff ected by an event, the more short-term adaptation abilities it has. Findings are unambiguous when we wanted to confi rm whether path dependence leads to specialisation of the economy and whether over-specialisation dampens innovativeness since innovations in most industries are related to locations with diverse urban base. However, findings are clear about breaking out of path dependency by less developed regions. We identify examples of less developed regions that changed their development paths despite the dependence on several declining industries. This has been achieved through the appropriate policy pursued by the regional authorities, the very good preparation and education of human capital. Thus, good regional strategy, including innovation strategy could be the leading point in breaking out of path dependency for less developed regions.

Wales is one from five selected European regions, which (looking at statistical analysis), develop in an extraordinary way in comparison to others. The purpose of the article is to identify factors which had an impact on the change of Wales’s development path as well as to indicate problems with which the region has still struggle. The article is based on a desk research, statistical data analysis as well as structured in-depth interviews conducted with representatives of regional authorities, scientifi c units and business-related institutions. Based on this, conclusions and recommendations for the institutions involved in implementation of regional policy in Polish voivodeships have been formulated.