The Committee of the Regions is engaged in the monitoring of the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy from the perspective of regional development and cohesion. This short survey by the Committee of the Regions serves the collection of opinion and feedback regarding the Europe 2020 initiatives for social change and innovation in the regions and EU Member States. Ecologic Institute and RIMAS are analysing the results in a ten-page report. The report is available for download.

Innovation has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy and aims to maintain and increase Europe's competitiveness by, among others, stepping up investments in education, research and development, and technology, improving integration of research programmes, reducing fragmentation across Member States, modernising the education systems, completing the European Research Area, bringing research innovation faster to the market, facilitating public-private partnerships, and removing barriers to knowledge translation.

The social dimension of the Europe 2020 Strategy includes important targets such as reducing the number of people at risk of poverty, combating social exclusion, and increasing the number of households with higher work intensity. Policies that are part of this dimension include promoting inclusive growth, better integration of policies aimed to foster employment, and measures to reduce poverty and social exclusion.

The  Committee of the Regions observes and makes recommendations in particular with respect to the recognition of regional economic, demographic, historical and cultural differences and their appropriate reflection in the Europe 2020 initiatives.

The framework contract between the Committee of the Regions and Ecologic Institute, the Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS) at the Vienna University of Economics, the Policy Studies Institute in London and ICLEI Europe supports the Committee's activities to evaluate the effects of the Europe 2020 initiatives through the preparation of analyses of the extent to which the Member States and regions consider regional diversity and needs in their implementation of the Europe 2020 initiatives.

The findings of the quick survey conducted by the CoR will be summarised by Ecologic Institute and RIMAS in a ten-page report.