Capturing the achievements made by Interreg? Insights from cross border cooperation between Spain and Portugal

n recent years,‘place-based’interventions have become influentialin shaping economic development policy, especially at theEuropean level. From the 2007 to 2013 programming periodonwards, EU Cohesion policy, adopted a‘place-based’approachto encourage the competitiveness of all regions. Rather thanspatially-blind interventions, the focus is on tackling territorialinequalities via a more sophisticated spatially-sensitive approachto stimulate economic change, at the local level. The challenge isthat place-based policies are complex, risky and the performanceindicators used to capture the achievements from EU Cohesionpolicy focus on direct results rather than expected policy change,making it hard to prove effectiveness and value for money. Thispaper contributes to ongoing academic and policy debates abouthow to capture the achievements of EU Cohesion policy, throughan in-depth case study of‘place-based’interventions made viaInterreg funding, to encourage cross-border cooperation betweenSpain and Portugal. The evidence illustrates that there is a needfor novel approaches, which are conceptually informed andspatially sensitive to be able to capture not only the quantitativebut also the qualitative achievements generated through EU‘place-based’interventions.