The Mission ofthe Smart Region Project

Abstract

The Smart Region Project - Age Management in Innovative Regions - takes place within the Framework of the European Social Fund - Innovative Measures which determines it in the direction of the decisions taken by the Council in Lisbon, Stockholm and Barcelona. The key issues dealtwith by the project are the effects ofdemographic developments on regional labour markets and the role of early retirement in this context.It is a common idea that the function ofresearch projects is to permit advances to be made in the various branches ofScience by improving what is already being known. This is true, in fact, but there are situations where such a perception becomes limitative. One ofthese situations occurs when structural data undergo essential changes; another, much more seldom, situation rises in the transition phase between the exhaustion of a system and the birth of another.