Regional Governance. New Modes of Self-Government in the European Community

The topic of a Scientific EuroConference held in Hannover / Germany, from April 19th to 21st 2001 was Regional Governance and was subsidized by the European Commission, Human Potential Programme. The publication presents an overview over the objectives, the organisation, the content and the results of the conference. The background for organizing the venue refers to the fact that during the last ten years ”regional governance” had become a topic of scientific discussion, fueled by the influence of globalization, the EC policies (structure funds, ESDP-process, Committee of the Regions etc.) and regionalization strategies of the member states. In addition, the EC had organized a discourse on ”governance” in the wake of the ”Nizza-process”. The objectives of the conference were: to get more insights into the present discussion on ”regional governance”, to identify open research questions concerning the general topic, to organize an academic discourse between younger and senior researchers within Europe and to mobilize young researchers of different member states of the EC to form research-networks on some of the identified research questions.