Regional brands and large-scale protected areas – Processes of branding in selected protected area regions of Europe in the context of sustainable regional development

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Ingo Mose; Professor Dr. Andreas Voth
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 505372355

Area protection in Europe is undergoing a paradigmatic reorientation, whereby a primarily segregative oriented approach has been replaced by an increasingly integrative one. As "living landscapes", protected areas are to become model spaces that demonstrate how regions can shape sustainable development. Stakeholders from politics, business, and civil society, as well as the regional population, associate the establishment of a large-scale protected area (LPA) with a wide range of expectations, which is why LPAs are increasingly being considered as instruments of regional development, especially of peripheral rural areas. In this context, an increasing proliferation of regional brands in diverse LPAs can be noticed, which act as a kind of crystallization core and promise mutual synergies for the LPA and the regional brand. However, rural regions have been underrepresented in the scientific discourse on place branding. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the phenomenon of regional brands has received only sporadic scientific attention so far, despite an increasing distribution in various LPAs in Europe and the presumed potential regarding sustainability transitions, the development of rural areas or the awareness and acceptance of the LPA. Initial observations suggest that specific governance structures will emerge or should be formed for the initiation, expansion, continuation and, if necessary, quality control of such regional brands in protected area regions. In the context of different spatial levels, the diffusion of such brands is also of interest. In this context, it can be assumed that the idea for a brand is adapted to the respective circumstances when it is implemented in another protected area. Overall, there is a lack of a more comprehensive study that focuses on these regional brands for LPA regions, examines them against the background of existing discourses on place branding, and in particular, also comprehensively considers emerging governance structures, diffusion patterns, and different European contexts of implementation as well as developments of the concept of these regional brands in LPA regions based on these contexts. Within the framework of a joint project, it is planned to present and explain the development of selected regional brands in the context of LPAs in Europe, to identify dissemination paths and crucial contextual conditions of brand development, as well as brand characteristics, actors, and their interaction, and to point out resulting adaptations of the concept, especially with regard to forms of protected area governance. In addition, the potentials for sustainable development associated with these brands will be identified and existing brand concepts will be subjected to a comparative typification. For this purpose, selected regional brands in LPAs of two groups of countries (France, Spain, Portugal and Austria, Hungary, Romania) will be explored within the framework of a comparative case study investigation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants