Alle Artikel von Dominik Bertram

Forschung & Projekte, Publikationen, , , ,

Settlement Systems in Mountain Regions: A Research Gap?

Cities and their networks play an important role in spatial development. This is true for settlement systems in general, and there is no reason why this should be different in mountain contexts. However, research on this topic is scarce, and it remains a relatively niche topic. In our latest article, we present a scoping review of settlement systems in mountain regions. We reflect on thematic foci, temporal developments, and regional differences in the global scientific debate. The paper is p...

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Forschung & Projekte, Publikationen, , , , , ,

Investigating roles beyond size: Small towns in the European Alps

A short new article in the ESPON magazine TerritoriALL: Dominik Bertram and Tobias Chilla reflect on ‘roles beyond size’ of small towns in the European Alps. Providing equitable access to services of general interest (SGI) is an explicit objective of the EU Territorial Agenda 2030. Especially in mountain regions, ensuring fair accessibility to SGI is a significant challenge due to low population density and topographical barriers. The TerritoriALL article refers the concept of Population Catc...

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Allgemein, Forschung & Projekte, Publikationen, Veranstaltungen, , , , , ,

Mapping the Scene: Cartographic sketches on the EUSALP cross-cutting priorities

The Swiss Presidency of the EU Alpine Strategy (EUSALP) 2023 has focused on transversal topics and their political relevance. At the end of the presidency, the Annual Forum and the General Assembly took place in Bad Ragaz (19th Oct 2023), where four cross-cutting priorities were discussed: a) Promoting Digitalisation for the Alps, b) Accelerating the Energy Transition for a Carbon-Neutral Alpine Region, c) Promoting a Joint Water Management Transition and d) Boosting Circular Economy. We were...

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Forschung & Projekte, Lehre, Publikationen, Veranstaltungen, , , ,

Grenzraumakademie ’23 – Grenzregionen Deutschlands mit seinen Nachbarländern

  Am 20./21. April 2023 fand in Berlin die ‚Grenzraumakademie‘ statt. Diese Veranstaltung brachte ca. 130 Gästen aus den Grenzregionen Deutschlands und den Nachbarstaaten in den Austausch mit Expertinnen und Experten verschiedener Politikbereiche und -ebenen.   Die Ver­anstaltung war durch ein Forschungsprojekt initiiert: Das Projekt CoBo ‚Cohesion in Border Regions‘ wird von der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg und der Universität St. Gallen bearbeitet (Januar 2021 bis Dezember ...

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How to overcome the ‘size problem’ of the Alpine settlement system?

The Alpine settlement system is of key relevance for sustainable development in the mountain region. However, maps on the European scale indicate almost no cities in the Alps but only a few small towns. The Alpine region seems to be an ‘empty’ space (see, e.g. Atlas for the Territorial Agenda 2030). We argue that a differentiated mapping approach should involve medium and small settlements in mountain regions, as they have a high functional importance for the surrounding area.   Our r...

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Roles beyond size? Investigating polycentricity and accessibility of small towns in the Alps

Fair accessibility to services of general interest is a considerable challenge in mountain regions due to low population density and morphological context (see, ESPON Alps2050). However, the centrality debate has hardly taken morphology into account, even though mountain areas require a specific form of spatial organization. A lower level of accessibility leads either to longer distances and travel times or (in the better case) to increased service supply in smaller settlements. Our recently ...

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Forschung & Projekte, , , , ,

Cohesion in Border Regions (CoBo): Delphi survey on policy options starts

European cohesion is of key concern in Europe's internal border regions. The CoBo project examines the current state and existing potentials (funded by the federal ministry of research, duration 2021-23). In these days, a so-called Delphi survey starts. Its aim is to identify future potentials and challenges of Germany’s border regions. Key experts from the border regions will be asked for their participation in two rounds of digital surveys. In the second round, we will present the interim r...

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Forschung & Projekte, Publikationen, , , ,

Short Value Chains in Food Production – the Role of Spatial Proximity for Economic and Land Use Dynamics

A new paper from our team reflects on the question to what extent regional food supply chains support the status of agricultural demand in the competition for land. The main objective of our paper is to understand the role of proximity between the different stages of value creation. Our empirical study on the example of three food products (beer, sweet cherry, asparagus) in Bavaria (Germany) shows that short distances within food value chains support the agricultural condition in land use dynami...

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Forschung & Projekte, , , , , , ,

Grenzregionen und Kohäsion – neues BMBF-Projekt CoBo

Viele Facetten des europäischen Zusammenhalts zeigen sich besonders plastisch an den europäischen Binnengrenzen. Das Projekt CoBo (Cohesion in Border Regions) untersucht die Organisation des Zusammenhaltes in Grenzregionen und lotet die hier bestehenden Potenziale aus. Zwar sind grenzüberschreitendes Zusammenwachsen und regionales Prosperieren auch die Erfolge der Kooperation auf verschiedenen Ebenen. Dennoch spielen Barrieren und Randlagen trotz des europäischen Integrationsprozesses weiterhin ...

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