About CA18214

Objectives of the COST Action CA18214

The COST Action CA18214 ‘The geography of New Working Spaces and the impact on the periphery’  develops around 3 main work packages objectives corresponding to 3 Working Groups:

These working groups are constantly supported by dissemination and communication activities:

Working Group 04 – Dissemination and Communication

Main research questions 

Within the perspective of territorial cohesion, the CA18214 focuses on peripheral areas and the main research questions are:

1. Do new working spaces represent a critical urban practice that has developed to cope with the prevalent informality, uncertainty and risks of independent work?
2. May new working spaces enhance the workers’ economic performance and wellbeing?
3. May new working spaces favor social capital building and encourage return migration of knowledge workers to the periphery?
4. May they provide inclusive spaces to women (i.e. mothers, and minority women) close to home thus, favoring gender equality?
5. Can they maintain the livability and economic viability of peripheries, and foster growth opportunities, thus enhancing a multiplier effect generating new knowledge communities?

In addition to supporting public policy, this knowledge can be relevant to regional and urban planners when discussing, for instance, the location of new working functions around cities and urban regions and the degree of multi-functionality of peripheral areas, and when negotiating with the private real estate operators or other actors (e.g. the manager of coworking spaces and makerspaces).

Impact

The COST Action CA18214 methodology is based on networking and collaborative learning that will play a core role in producing innovative knowledge within the Action, as well as enhancing cooperation between different academic and research institutions, policy makers and stakeholders at the European level. 

The Action aims to produce usable knowledge by working within “situated contexts”, comparing “situated answers”, and assessing their transferability. 

A significant contribution will result from the development of a methodology able to collect the several impacts of new working spaces on the urban area, and specifically on the peripheral ones. Criteria to measure these impacts will be developed together with guidelines. 

Besides, a tool-box for policy makers and stakeholders will be created in order to help them disentangling strengths and weaknesses of new working spaces typologies as well as of existing policy tools. 

On the basis of the results, the Action aspires to be followed by collaborative projects to support the implementation of the proposed measures in local, regional or national specific context and develop empirical testing.

Involvement of the stakeholders

This COST Action contributes to identify main figures and trends about new working spaces, and their effects on the workers, and on the socio-economic and spatial context, with a focus on the peripheral areas. Besides, the impact of policy and planning tools promoting the development of new working spaces is explored. 

At the national and sub-national levels, this Action involves external stakeholders, alongside academic and research institutions, in order to exchange views, knowledge and information. 

The most relevant stakeholders to engage with, starting from (but not restricting to) personal contacts of the Action members, are:

• public administrations, which are currently or potentially committed to fostering new working spaces and/or strengthening the development of peripheral areas, as city municipalities, metropolitan and/or regional institutions, and national governments of areas where the research network partners are placed;
• firms (single or associations), as well as the third sector and civil society groups, which are directly involved and/or indirectly interested in the management and/or use of new workplaces, as the ones which are based in cities, regions or countries where the research network partners originate;
• trade unions representatives on a local and national level, which are dealing with the ongoing radical changes in the labor market;
• European institutions representative and organizations of employers and employees.