Our Themes

The Carpathian Development Institute, as a research organization, aims to offer solutions in the area of strategic development of territories.

Development is understood as a set of economic, social, environmental and cultural processes and relationships occurring in a given territory, respecting the conditions and peculiarities of this environment. These processes and relationships affect individual components of the territory, though perhaps not all at once at the time and intensity.

Currently, the development of the territory should not take place as a process based only on past experiences, existing needs, on the traditional system of development management nor on extrapolation of past trends. For dynamic development of the territory it is essential its conduct of some way to correct and adapt to new, possibly incoming facts related to lack of resources, environmental threats and the increasing pressure for efficiency and effectiveness of development processes. The quality of local development is understood in the context of optimizing the legislative, institutional and policy environment at national and EU level.

Currently, the CDI conducts research and is active in promoting the following themes:

• Good governance of development at local and regional level
• Integrated development planning of a territory
• Mainstreaming of environmental challenges into local and regional development

All themes are linked and their common denominator is reasonable, appropriate and dynamic development of the given territory. Each topic includes several sub-themes that are discussed and addressed in the projects or other forums, providing space for wide expert participation in order to establish specific, in practice applicable outcomes.

CDI’s approach to development of territories can be illustrated in the figure below.
We start from the assumption that the achievement of positive change in the dynamics of development in a territory depends on the quality of all the factors that enter into the development process. First is a comprehensive, realistic and viable development plan as the output of integrated planning, to which if we add the corresponding specific knowledge, skills and motivation of the executive and the elected representatives of self-governments there is a prerequisite for good decisions towards a more dynamic development of the territory. Good decisions cannot be completely translated into reality without creating an effective implementation mechanism at all levels. Key and all factors influencing is the way of governing the territory development – the application of main principles of good governance such as public accountability, transparency, participation, efficiency and effectiveness.