The EXIT project is funded with support from the European Commission under the HORIZON Programme.
 
THE SITUATION
The world is in the midst of multiple political, economic, and social crises. Mounting inequalities across Europe further fuel
these crises. Some territories and their citizens are “left behind”, while economic dynamism is increasingly concentrated in a
few places. This is particularly prominent from a geographical perspective as spatial inequality grows within regions. Despite
overall country level economic growth, certain regions are experiencing long-term socioeconomic stagnation or decline. These areas
have been often characterised as ‘left-behind’. Yet, little is known of what drives ‘left-behindness’.
 

OUR AIM
EXIT will provide an in-depth analysis of ‘left-behind’ as a concept used for characterising territorial inequalities faced
by certain areas, and identify strategies to address it. This means not only building knowledge on the drivers of inequality in
areas that are characterised as ‘left-behind’, but also on what drives political, media and academic characterisations of these
areas as ‘left-behind’ and experiences and perceptions of being ‘left-behind’ among inhabitants of these areas.
To do so, EXIT proposes bottom-up, interdisciplinary and mixed-methods research with a community-based and intersectional
approach from the analysis to the transferability of practices.