Regions are now moving beyond "the new regionalism" into network regionalism. The new regionalism began emerging in the late 1980s stimulated by the accellerating pace of European integration, the spread of the endogenous paradigm of development and was spearheaded by strong identity regions such as Catalonia, Scotland or Flanders. Network regionalism is also developmental and internationalist in its orientation but it is collaborative rather than competitive in its modus operandi and relies to a large extent on network modes of governance for eveloping and implementing its policies.
The thesis guiding the project that is reported here is that the challenges of regional governance today are closely related to the capacity of regions to organize and run network activities. The project focuses in particular on Nordic and European networking activities of regions. The project builds on and updates a data base established 1997/98 covering all Nordic regions and larger cities. Thus, a central aim of the project is to chart the changes in networking activities and related development initiatives that have taken place over the last ten years.