28 August 2028
For almost nine years, cross-border cooperation has experienced extensive attention as the European Commission has gradually yet consistently delivered on its commitment to support border regions in reaching their untapped potential, launched in the Communication “Boosting growth and cohesion in EU border regions” in 2017.
Another milestone was just reached with the Science for Policy report, “Living spaces, flows and structures across the EU internal borders”, published this week by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), which addresses the challenge of building evidence of cross-border interaction to inform decision-making. Bundling various initiatives to collect data that can effectively capture the dynamic lives of border regions, the report offers a comprehensive overview of approaches tested by various researchers to understand the unique flows that citizens and businesses thread in cross-border areas.
The report examines how traditional statistics and emerging data sources can be combined to better identify cross-border activity. It brings together research using administrative records, surveys and public transport data alongside newer approaches such as mobile phone and app data, web scraping and geospatial artificial intelligence. Interestingly, these methods can reveal not only existing movements but also the potential for greater interaction if legal, administrative, infrastructure or language barriers were reduced, presenting an important opportunity to tackle persisting obstacles.
A central element of this effort is the European Commission’s Data Hub for EU Border Regions. Developed through the ACROSS project by the JRC and the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, the open platform brings together harmonised data and indicators to support policymakers, local authorities and researchers addressing border regions. Among others, b-solutions data is integrated into the platform, allowing an overview of cases collected between 2018 and 2024.
Reliable data is key to map life in border regions and capture border regions for the living spaces they are to the citizens and businesses who reside here, as it enables better policy-making. Extending its gratitude to the JRC, AEBR welcomes this enormous effort made to enhance collaboration between policymakers and academic researchers and invites all actors of cross-border cooperation to utilise this useful toolkit to further improve cross-border cooperation.
Find the report here: Living spaces, flows and structures across the EU internal borders
Access the Data Hub for EU Border Regions here: Data Hub for EU Border Regions
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