The goal of presented paper is to show growing importance of active public policy for socio-economic development of Polish regions. There is a description of general context of programming socio-economic development in Poland. After accession to EU in 2004 Poland developed set of programming documents on central level. Last document Responsible Development Strategy until 2030 was approved in 2017. In following part of that study there are presented issues of voivodeship development strategies and regional innovation strategies. Intraregional policy managed by self-governments in context of innovativeness is also tackled. In fi nal part conclusions and recommendations concerning regional policy are proposed.

Today’s cities tend to “pour out” beyond their administrative boundaries. This phenomenon is related to the settlement of people “from the city” in neighboring municipalities, or taking up jobs in cities by people living in neighboring municipalities. This has been recognized in the European Union, which has introduced appropriate legal instruments for cohesion policy. Integrated Territorial Investments were introduced to the EU cohesion policy for the fi rst time in the 2014-2020 fi nancial perspective. Their goal was to intensify cooperation between cities and their functional areas. Unfortunately, the emerging information about diffi culties in implementing ITIs often become the basis for considering this idea ineff ective. The purpose of the work is qualitative and quantitative verifi cation of the operation of ITU based on selected data, so that it is possible to answer the question about the validity of the existence of this instrument.

Presented paper adresses issue of key research areas, which are important for development of backward regions in Poland. Proposed areas of priority research activities concentrates on: building resilience of regional structures on socio-economic crises; using megatrends impact on development paths; implementing public intervention generating economic growth; developing territorial keys for development; utilising capacity of cities, especially biggest; increasing quality of public management, strengthening of innovativeness and competitiveness of EU regions and cities; using better social and cultural dimension of socio-economic development; increasing potential of cross-border cooperation and using new development concepts, monitoring of socio-economic development through objective measuring of levels and paths. For Poland It is very important to use research activities to support process of closing gap with more affl uent EU regions.

The article is an attempt at analyzing the development processes of the French peripheral region, Nord-Pas-de-Calais. This region has been a subject of regional policy for many years, including significant public and private sector investments to help transform the economy. The analysis of key events in the context of the path dependency theory shows that, despite a marked increase in innovation, socio-economic development and some investment success, for the region located between Paris, London and Brussels it is very diffi cult to compete for growth factors.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) play an important role in the economies of numerous emerging economies. Despite the fact that the SME sector plays a significant role in the national economy it still suffers from the underdeveloped financial sector services. It results in the lower levels of indebtedness of private sector in Poland in relation to such emerging economies like Malaysia, Estonia or Chile. The commercial financial sector is inefficient in delivering funds to SME, the important role in this area is played by regional policy, especially supported from European regional funds. The distribution of development funds is realized with serious problems because SME are reluctant to financial sector services and besides typical grants, debt-type instruments meet serious problems. Polish SME are also reluctant to use support instruments aimed at developing innovations, R&D, and intellectual property (IP) protection. Imitation model of growth still dominates among Polish SME. To address this issue, in 2014 the University of Gdansk (UG) launched a project, supported by National Science Centre (NCN, governmental), on using behavioural interventions to increase the propensity of Polish SME to apply more ambitious development measures through support instruments. The research revealed, that the majority of tested behavioural interventions aimed at building friendly support environment proved to be efficient and increased the interest of SME in developmental activities.

Considering the increasing role of cities throughout the world and in Europe, the European Union regulations on cohesion policy that are binding in the 2014–2020 programme period have foreseen the need to introduce a separate intervention dedicated to cities and their functional areas. However, the implementation of these solutions did not come without certain problems. They referred both to the process of institutionalising co-operation and to the realisation of projects. Also in Poland, Integrated Territorial Investments have not gone beyond co-operation for the absorption of EU funding so far, which demonstrates doubtlessly that their potential still remains unexploited. Thus, a discussion on both the positive and negative aspects of the implementation of ITIs is necessary. Poland, as the largest beneficiary of the Cohesion Policy, has a wide experience, which might provide valuable information on that matter. The aim of the paper is to present these experiences and to provide conclusions for the regional policy.

In the heterogeneous economic space, big cities are development poles that are usually characterized by the best conditions for running a business and the highest level and living conditions. Their role in development processes is the subject of many discussions. On 23 October 2017, at the invitation of the Mayor of Cracow, J. Majchrowski, an external Plenary meeting of the Committee for Spatial Development of the Polish National Academy of Sciences was held in Cracow, the aim of which was to discuss the role of big cities in Poland›s socio-economic development. This article presents the author›s opinions in a synthetic way, presenting the most important issues raised by him during the panel on the importance of Polish metropolises in shaping the development potential of the country and the region. In addition to the fundamental terminological and problematic discussion, the article describes the experience of Poznań as an agglomeration signifi cantly aff ecting the development of the region, formulating in the summary recommendations referring to the practice of regional policy.

Local and Regional Policy in the Light of Depopulation – Example of Silesian Voivodeship. Decreasing number of population along with demographic ageing create significant developing challenges in the labour market, in housing, social infrastructure, education and in many other areas. This applies in particular to the areas in which significant intensification of depopulation is already observed or expected to occur. Therefore, it should be considered when local and regional policies are being created, and it should be reflected in development strategies formulated for each area. The goal of the article is to determine whether the formulated development strategies reflect the real needs arising from the observed social processes and how precisely they reflect local and regional policies. This problem is illustrated by the example of the Silesia Voivodeship.

The article aims to explain whether in 2004–2015 Poland experienced economic convergence between regions and counties (Polish: powiat), and whether this process occurred within the regions (Polish: województwo). Following Poland’s EU accession, the Polish policy became dominated by the polarization and diffusion concept of regional development, which may cause differences in the short term, while in the long run it may contribute not only to the increased efficiency of public funds allocation, but also to the elimination of disparities in growth levels. In the analysed period Poland experienced a process of economic divergence between the regions, only the years 2006–2008 saw a short-term reduction in regional disparities. On the other hand, a slow process of reducing economic inequalities between counties took place after 2004. It was, however, varied – a clear reduction in disparities occurred between the land counties (Polish: powiat ziemski) in an almost monotonic manner, whereas city counties (Polish: miasto na prawach powiatu) did not undergo any convergence. Within the regions, the process of economic convergence varied: in five regions, β-convergence was identified, and σ-convergence occurred in all the regions. The process of reducing disparities was significantly dependent on the development pathway of the region.

The work assessed the diversity of the natural potential in communes of Szczecin Metropolitan Area with particular emphasis on the areas of natural and valuable nature, protected area, forests and green areas. Established links between natural resources of municipalities and their valorisation using the SWOT analysis method (included in development strategies) and planned development goals. The basic method of use of the natural potential of the municipality are: to improve the quality of life of residents and tourism development. The impact of the natural potential on the quality of life is noticed primarily by urban centres, where a large share of green areas is noticed. The commune with a dominant share of protected areas (include Natura 2000) draws attention to the development of tourism based on natural potential. This is particularly evident in the communities that are characterized by a favourable location in relation to watercourses and reservoirs (freshwater and marine). However, in the socio-economic development, the natural potential is used in both these directions: to improve the quality of life and the development of tourism. In local strategic documents, it can be noticed that the transport system based on bicycle, pedestrian and water routes related to the natural potential can be eff ectively used in building cooperation between the central and other municipalities associated in Szczecin Metropolitan Area.