TERritory, eneRgy & Employment  
The envisaged balance of the SEE programme area in economic and social development leads to an increasing demand in energy provision, mainly provided by the carbon-neutral production of energy. Indeed, the achievement of a sustainable energy future in South East Europe requires new investments in R&D, as well as key policy initiatives to overcome existing technical, ideological and economic obstacles and pave the way towards a EU energy and environmental policy's convergence. Several territories (rural, hilly and mountainous) of SEE are affected, although at a different level, by similar problems: less (or lack) of services and less employment opportunities compared to urban agglomerations and competitive growth areas. The rising cost of oil (and also of public transportation as a result of anti-public deficit measures adopted, more or less, everywhere) is making less convenient to live outside of cities and however far from the working places. These factors are causing (or could) a gradual depopulation of the less inhabited areas, with serious consequences in terms of new territorial disparities, risk of depopulation of more peripheral zones, risk of underproductive crops as well as loss of ecological safeguard and control of the territories. In such a context, Territory, Energy & Employment intends to experiment and demonstrate that a wise & integrated exploitation of endogenous resources to produce renewable energy (from different sources as bio-mass, sun, water, wind) is an effective engine for a self-generated and sustainable local development in the areas, based on PPP between public institutions (regions, provinces, municipalities), private operators (overall farmers, breeders and woods' owners, plus investors in RES), and local communities, to get revenues and employment opportunities in less developed or marginal zones, and thus to promote tailored paths of growth and development based on a proper use of local resources.