This Knowledge Service was "smart archived" in July 2024, which means that the knowledge it created and curated has been left online, but is no longer being maintained.

Economic and societal challenges (economic growth, employment, poverty, migration, energy production and consumption …) cannot be fully understood without a territorially disaggregated dimension to help pinpoint regions’ particularities, combine sectoral measures and evaluate strengths and weaknesses.

Additionally, the crises aftermaths showed that a 'one-size-fits-all' approach does not effectively reduce country and regional disparities.

One of the main challenges for EU policy-makers engaged in addressing territorial development in the short term is to capitalise on the wealth of existing but fragmented and not always easily accessible knowledge at all levels – local, national, European and global.

Another equally important challenge is to better anticipate future trends and to better understand their impact.

The Knowledge Centre for Territorial Policies (KCTP) is an initiative of the European Commission fostering evidence-based policy making at EU, national and local level.  The KCTP aims to be the point of reference for Commission services, Member States and local authorities on territorial and regional knowledge and data. It allows for analytical and networking activities, accompanied by a repository of relevant research and new initiatives.