Background

The EXIT project aims to explore the manifestations, root causes and implications of socioeconomic inequalities within and between areas that are often referred to as ‘left behind’. The project – involving seven universities and four civil society organizations from eight countries – will propose ways to tackle such territorial inequalities through a rigorous programme of cross-disciplinary and multi-actor research with communities on the ground. The project will explore, from an intersectional and participatory approach, how inhabitants, institutions and organizations in these areas perceive, experience and counteract inequalities. The comprehensive programme will enable knowledge sharing between countries and communities in order to propose sustainable strategies to address growing inequalities between and within territories.

The world is in the midst of multiple political, economic, and social crises. Mounting inequalities across Europe further fuel these crises. Some territories and their citizens are “left behind”, while economic dynamism is increasingly concentrated in a few places. This is particularly prominent from a geographical perspective as spatial inequality grows within regions. Despite overall country level economic growth, certain regions are experiencing long-term socioeconomic stagnation or decline. These areas have been often characterised as ‘left-behind’. Yet, little is known of what drives ‘left-behindness’.

EXIT will provide an in-depth analysis of ‘left-behind’ as a concept used for characterising territorial inequalities faced by certain areas, and identify strategies to address it. This means not only building knowledge on the drivers of inequality in areas that are characterised as ‘left-behind’, but also on what drives political, media and academic characterisations of these areas as ‘left-behind’ and experiences and perceptions of being ‘left-behind’ among inhabitants of these areas. To do so, EXIT proposes bottom-up, interdisciplinary and mixed-methods research with a community-based and intersectional approach from the analysis to the transferability of practices.

Objectives

• Gain an in-depth understanding on how the concept of “left-behind” has been used in research, policy and political discourse to define certain areas facing territorial inequality.
• Reveal and comprehend the complexity of “left-behind” places, by conducting an in-depth analysis of territorial inequalities within the EU in areas considered as “left-behind”.
• Understand and unfold the rationale, added value and bias of the concept in relation to linked concepts such as geographic inequality, disparities and stigmatisation, territorial cohesion, and spatial justice.
• Analyse and assess how policies at different levels (local, regional, EU) contribute to the perception of inequality among “left-behind” areas.
• Gain knowledge on the experiences and perceptions of territorial inequality and how these vary among and within areas considered as “left-behind”.
• Consider and explore territorial inequalities and their recent development at the local level and in areas considered as “left-behind”.
• Understand how perceptions and experiences of inequality contribute to defining an area as “left-behind”.
• Evaluate to what extent some features of the neighbour regions/localities are (partially) responsible for territorial inequalities.
• Identify gaps between socioeconomic factors of inequality and perception of being “left-behind”.
• Gain knowledge of existing practices and strategies that promote levelling up and social inclusion in areas considered as “left-behind”.
• Identify and enhance the capacity of grassroots, local and regional initiatives that promote the development of areas considered as “left-behind” and analyse to what extent the initiatives work to counteract inequalities and polarization within these areas.
• Enhance cooperation between local and regional stakeholders from areas in decline and policymakers at all levels, promoting the transferability and upscaling of successful initiatives.
• Propose sustainable strategies of governance to address growing territorial inequalities through a participatory and intersectional approach.

Who will benefit from the project?

• Policymakers at local and regional level
• Policymakers at national and EU level
• Local civil society actors, including grassroots initiatives, support organisations and unions
• People living in areas in economic stagnation and decline
• Researchers working in the field of territorial inequalities

Activities

EXIT is structured in three phases:

• First Phase, BUILDING CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE AND THEORY - Building knowledge on ‘left-behindness’
• Second Phase, EMPIRICAL AND DATA RESEARCH - Mapping inequality and its drivers from an intersectional perspective: socioeconomic data, experiences and perceptions of inequality in areas ‘left-behind’
• Third Phase, RESEARCH TO ACTION AND POLICY BUILDING - Identifying and upscaling key strategies of resistance and resilience being implemented on the ground that address the causes and consequences of growing territorial inequality

The EXIT outputs at a glance

• A State-of-the-Art Paper on the concept ‘left-behind’ places
• A heuristic model of “leaving behind” / “feeling left behind”
• Criteria for the selection of “left-behind” areas
• A report on the analysis of key policies and strategies
• A report on the exploratory analysis on gaps between factors of inequality and perception
• A policy brief on ‘left-behind’ and policy responses
• An estimation of income/poverty at local level for 2011 and 2021 (or spatial dis aggregation of regional official figures)
• A regional inequality decomposition into neighbourhood features
• Country reports on experiences and perceptions
• A comparative cross-national report on experiences and perceptions
• Country reports on strategies and practices
• A cross-national report on strategies and practices
• A report on country workshops collective outputs
• A final comparative report on the transferability and upscaling of strategies
• Guidelines on uses and misconceptions over ‘let-behind’ places
• Guides for policymakers and communities

Project partners

Coordinator:

Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)

Partners:

Universita Ca' Foscari Venezia (Italy)

Technische Universitaet Wient (Austria)

KMOP, Social Action and Innovation Center (Greece)

Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)

Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)

Center for Social Policy (Serbia)

Red Europea de Lucha contra la Pobreza y la Exclusion Social en el Estado Espanol (Spain)

Aalborg Universitet (Denmark)

Associazione Arci (Italy)

The University of Warwick (UK)

Documents

• Guidelines on uses and misconceptions of the concept "left-behind" (.pdf)

News

• Conference: Exploring sustainable strategies to counteract territorial inequalities from an intersectional approach
• Survey on Territorial Inequality
• EXIT project unveils Guidelines to address territorial inequalities
• The EXIT project explores the concept of “Left Behind Places” in territorial inequalities

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The EXIT project has a duration of 36 months (01/11/2022 – 31/10/2025) and is funded with support from the European Commission under the HORIZON Programme.