Historically, access to funding sources for project development has normally been constrained by the logic of needing/expecting the perfect funding for the project.
With the 2014/2020 programming period, this stereotype and school of thought has been effectively abandoned. The prospect of the provision of funding has been progressively directed towards projects linked more to the logic of the system, and thus adhering to a “high” level of programming, which is then declining in a manner that adheres to local specificities.
The planning of funding sources for 2021/2027 further emphasises this approach to fundraising, requiring everyone, with greater commitment on the part of advisors, to work towards the creation of projects that increasingly respond to a broader logic and, only if they are contextualised within this logic, are considered worthy of attention (and funding).
The 2021/2027 programming, which is also extremely rich in response to the COVID-19 emergency, after a 14-year waiting period (two seven-year periods/two programming strategies) is now mature enough to govern the principles to which it is bound and for which it is told.
All planning acts, at European, national, regional, and municipal level, cannot be separated from a strong approach closely linked to clearly identify and described objectives, which primarily involve the cohesion projects: any territory, whatever its size, cannot fail to adapt its needs to the ‘high’ requirements of the objectives of the next 2021/2027 programming period, in accordance with the 2030 and 2050 strategies. This gives rise to a pressing, immediate, strong need to view territorial development not so much as an exclusively local development perspective, but as one that sees local development integrated within a broader context. The new forms of design cannot therefore ignore two paradigms:
- The assessment of ex ante conditions (a constraint of the previous programming period which has been overlooked).
- The integrated design of any intervention on the territory.
The demand to begin to see territorial development projects as elements of a larger system, a vast area, within the area in which they are developed but also in a broader context: that of a community that “rows” to guide the “boat” towards the same “landing place”.
