From policy to practice.

The European Green Deal and rural vision guide the transition. The EU Nature Restoration Regulation establishes restoration obligations. In Portugal, ENEI 2030, Portugal 2030 and Algarve 2030, among others, offer connections with innovation and regional development. These instruments differ in legal force, purpose and implementation.

A Lab brings together activities often treated separately: farming, nature management, learning, enterprise and sometimes housing. One plan can therefore involve several procedures and authorities. The question is which parts fit existing frameworks and where coordination or a plan amendment is needed.

This page describes our approach and research question. A project’s legal status is established for each location.

The task is to connect policy goals and implementation through a route that works in the place.

In Portugal, spatial programmes and territorial plans belong to the same system. Article 3 of the Regime Jurídico dos Instrumentos de Gestão Territorial states that territorial plans directly bind public bodies and private parties. A policy aim or registration of a cooperative therefore does not itself grant building or residential rights. A workable route requires assessment of the specific site and intended use.

An initiative often begins with a connected idea: people care for a place together and build an economy to sustain that work. An application procedure asks for separate information on buildings, use, ownership and effects. Each perspective needs something from the other.

Breaking a plan down into those parts takes time for its initiators. An official needs to know which powers, rules and information relate to each part. A recognisable term such as Living Lab helps the conversation, but does not establish a legal category.

Existing initiatives also have their own history, agreements and reasons for caution. We ask them to bring their language and experience. A federation becomes valuable when it makes that experience more useful.

We therefore begin with the actual situation: what is there, what happens, what is permitted and what remains a proposal? This foundation allows uncertainty to be investigated specifically and choices to be discussed.

Cooperation takes patience and clarity about responsibility. The initiative provides its plan and data; the competent authority assesses the route and makes its decisions.

We discuss how policy goals and local implementation can strengthen one another in our essay on the Implementation Gap.

Syntrociety aims to make the step from ambition to implementation smaller. We bring practice, the policy aim and the relevant rules into the same conversation.

A first step is a dossier another person can understand: the baseline, intended use, social and ecological aims, resources required and open questions. SYFERS can support recording and retrieving this information.

Initiators and competent authorities then investigate which route fits. It could be an existing permit procedure, a design adjustment, research cooperation or, where the law allows, a formal plan amendment or pilot scheme. The chosen procedure and conditions are made explicit.

Researchers can help evaluate a pilot. What changes for soil, water, people and the local economy? What costs and obstacles arise? This knowledge can take the conversation beyond a single application and help other initiatives learn from the route.

A useful pilot produces a working practice and shared knowledge about what makes implementation possible.

The value lies in an approach others can assess and use. We seek partners who want to design together, take responsibility and support their conclusions with evidence.