The mission-oriented approach for (cross-border) regional development

During the times of the COVID-19 pandemic, nations have issued unprecedented borderclosures around the world, yielding abrupt impacts on the movement of goods and people. This hasheavily affected the quality of life in border regions, which are often found to be at a disadvantagewhen compared to other regions in terms of employment, accessibility, social services and economicgrowth. Based upon developing threads in the literature concerning the untapped potential fordevelopment in border regions, we argue that the Mission-Oriented Approach (MOA) can fit wellwith the ambitious goal to revitalize those territories in the aftermath of the pandemic. Despite thesurge of MOA in discourses on innovation policy, we seek to implement it in a regional developmentperspective, pursuing both economic and social policy objectives. The authors unravel the policyconcept of MOA into three main aspects: (I) address a sound societal challenge; (II) Research &Development (R&D) regional agenda embedded in a cross-border regional development vision;(III) mobilizing multiple cross-sectorial projects. Through a desk study analysis, the authors drawinsights from selected case studies where these aspects have been implemented to inspire policyintervention in the aftermath of COVID-19. This paper presents the MOA theoretical model, which haspotential explanatory power in other cross-border regions.