I just realised that I have not published a post on this year’s Mesopartner Summer Academy in Berlin. Luckily, there are still places open, so if you see this post and are interested to participate in the training, please do apply!

The Academy is a training event for advanced professionals in territorial economic development and related economic development approaches. This year’s focus will be on what we call ‘meso organisations’. The meso level is where the both public and private actors on the national, regional, and local level work together to create locational advantages and increase relative competitiveness. The idea of the need to support the emergence and capacity of a meso level, though not new, is still not very strongly integrated in current approaches to economic development.

Besides the focus on meso organisations, we will also bring in as many insights as possible from our recent research products on systemic change.

Here some text from the official blurb for the Academy:

Territories are becoming more and more central to economic development efforts. Developing countries are facing many challenges and increasing change, especially beyond major cities and towns. Globalisation has increased the mobility of goods, people and ideas. At the same time, tacit knowledge and local learning are becoming more important, as they create a dynamic locational advantage.

At the Summer Academy, participants are introduced to Mesopartner’s approach to Territorial Economic Development (TED), which brings together experiences and instruments from Local and Regional Economic Development (LED/LRED), Bottom Up Industrial Policy, Innovation Systems, Complexity Thinking and Market System Development.

At the Summer Academy 2017, the specific emphasis will be on emergence and adaptation of meso organisations and their central role in the TED process. These organisations aim to promote the private sector, address persistent market underperformance, and promote territorial and sectoral competitiveness. The event will look at the organisational development in such organisations to enable them to identify trends and patterns in development processes, form partnerships or alliances and improve understanding through participatory processes. It will discuss the role of development programmes and their role in territorial development processes and what they can do to help meso organisations become more dynamic, strategic and responsive.

The Summer Academy 2017 will draw on more than a decade of Mesopartner’s experience in the field of economic development around the world. This experience will be enhanced by bringing in insights from the on-going involvement of Mesopartner in research activities that look at cutting edge thinking in economic development, complexity thinking and decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.

Much more details, such as a list of intended learning outcomes, a schedule for the week and of course logistics and information on registration can be found on the Summer Academy website.