The EU’s new strategy for outermost regions: why local research matters in the Canary Islands

On 10 September 2026, the European Commission presented a new strategic vision for the European Union’s outermost regions. The initiative covers the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira and the French outermost regions distributed across the Atlantic, the Caribbean, South America and the Indian Ocean. The nine EU outermost regions form an integral part of the European Union, but their geographical, economic and social conditions differ considerably from those of continental Europe.

The strategy represents an important change in perspective. These territories are no longer presented simply as remote regions facing permanent disadvantages, but as strategically important parts of the European Union, with considerable potential in areas such as renewable energy, the blue economy, biodiversity, research, security, connectivity and international cooperation.

The Commission’s new strategy for the EU’s outermost regions is organised around four main objectives: harnessing their geostrategic potential, increasing competitiveness, improving resilience and promoting social fairness.

It also proposes that the particular circumstances of these regions should be considered more systematically when European policies and legislation are designed, implemented and evaluated.

This is welcome. But it also presents a practical difficulty.

Europe can define a strategy for the Canary Islands from Brussels. Understanding what is really happening in the Canary Islands requires research within the territory.

Europe is changing the way it looks at its outermost regions

The nine outermost regions form part of the European Union, but their geographical, economic and social conditions differ considerably from those of continental Europe.

They are remote, insular or geographically isolated territories. Their economies often depend heavily on a limited number of sectors; their internal markets are smaller; transport and energy costs are higher; and their exposure to external crises is different. At the same time, they extend the Union’s presence across several continents and maritime areas and provide strategic opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to Europe.

The new European strategy attempts to address both sides of this reality.

It recognises persistent problems involving unemployment, poverty, access to housing, education, healthcare, transport, connectivity and economic diversification. But it also identifies opportunities in renewable energy, maritime research, biotechnology, the blue economy, tourism, space industries and cooperation with neighbouring territories.

The Commission proposes a more systematic application of Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which permits specific measures adapted to the structural circumstances of the outermost regions. It also announces greater dialogue with local stakeholders, stronger technical capacity and closer consideration of territorial impacts when future European initiatives are designed.

These ambitions cannot be converted into effective policies using general statistics alone. If the European Union wants to understand whether a programme is working in an outermost region, it needs to know what is happening in that particular territory, among the people and organisations affected by it.

And the Canary Islands are not simply a smaller version of mainland Spain.

The Canary Islands cannot be analysed as an extension of mainland Spain

A national average may be statistically correct and practically useless. The Canary Islands have their own demographic composition, productive structure, fiscal system, labour market and patterns of mobility. Tourism has an exceptional influence on employment, housing, transport and public services. The archipelago is geographically fragmented, and the circumstances found on one island cannot automatically be applied to another.

Gran Canaria and Tenerife contain the two principal metropolitan areas, but they do not represent the full reality of the archipelago. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura have different demographic, tourism and labour-market dynamics. La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro present their own challenges involving population, accessibility, economic activity and public services.

Even within the same island, conditions can vary considerably between metropolitan, tourist, rural and peripheral areas. A dataset can classify all these territories under the same regional code. Reality is rather less obedient.

This means that a socioeconomic study of the Canary Islands must do more than extract regional indicators from Eurostat, the Spanish National Statistics Institute or the Canary Islands Statistics Institute. These sources are essential, but they do not always explain why something is happening, which groups are being affected or how the same policy is producing different results in different territories.

That requires primary research, stakeholder consultation and territorial interpretation.

The problem with research designed too far away from the territory

International consultancies, universities and research consortia can offer considerable analytical resources, specialist knowledge and experience managing complex European projects.

But size does not automatically produce local understanding. A research team working from Brussels, Madrid, Paris or London may have access to the same official statistics, reports and databases. What it may not have is direct knowledge of the population, the local institutions, the business structure, the practical conditions of fieldwork or the differences that exist between islands.

This becomes particularly problematic when the methodology has already been designed before a local research partner is consulted.

A questionnaire may use concepts that respondents interpret differently in the Canary Islands. A sampling design may treat the archipelago as a homogeneous territory. A consultation may include the most visible organisations but overlook other relevant stakeholders. Interviews may be planned without considering travel, connectivity or seasonal conditions. National indicators may be accepted without investigating the local reality concealed behind them.

By the time somebody notices the problem, the questionnaire has been approved, the timetable is closed and the local provider is expected to make the methodology work somehow.

This is not the most effective way to conduct research. The local partner should not be the final link in a subcontracting chain, called upon only to recruit participants or complete a predetermined number of interviews. Local research capacity should be incorporated from the beginning: when the research question is defined, the indicators are selected, the sample is designed and the relevant stakeholders are identified.

A spreadsheet can compare Tenerife and La Gomera. It cannot visit them, speak to their residents or explain why the same figure may describe two very different realities.

Local research is not merely local fieldwork

Fieldwork is essential. Without reliable primary data, even the most sophisticated analytical model can produce impressively precise answers to the wrong question.

But local research involves considerably more than data collection. It begins by defining what needs to be understood and determining which methods can provide the necessary evidence. Depending on the project, this may involve representative surveys, telephone or face-to-face interviews, focus groups, observation, stakeholder mapping, consultation with public institutions, research among businesses or households and analysis of particular social or demographic groups.

The resulting information must then be interpreted in context. Why is participation in a programme lower on one island than another? Is a public service formally available but difficult to access? Does an employment initiative reach the population for which it was designed? Are businesses failing to use a European support programme because it is irrelevant, poorly communicated or excessively complicated? Has an infrastructure investment changed the daily experience of the population?

Official indicators may show whether a target has been reached. They do not necessarily explain what produced the result. This distinction is particularly important in the Canary Islands, where distance, insularity, population mobility, tourism dependence and territorial fragmentation can alter both the implementation of a policy and its effects.

The territory is not merely where fieldwork takes place. It forms part of the research question, the methodological design and the interpretation of the results.

From allocating European funds to demonstrating their results

The timing of the new strategy is also significant. On 31 August 2026, the deadline expired for EU Member States to complete the milestones and targets associated with the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the main instrument at the centre of NextGenerationEU. This does not mean that European funding for Spain has ended. Cohesion policy, Horizon Europe, Interreg and other European programmes continue.

It does, however, mark the end of an exceptional period dominated by the allocation and rapid implementation of recovery funds. The next question is unavoidable: what did those investments actually achieve?

When the implementation deadline ends, the need for research does not. It changes: from allocating and executing funds to evaluating what worked, for whom and under which territorial conditions.

Counting activities is relatively simple. An administration can report how much money was allocated, how many projects were approved, how many participants attended a programme or how many infrastructures were completed.

Measuring impact is more difficult.

Did the programme change behaviour? Did it improve access to employment or public services? Which population groups benefited? Who was excluded? Were the results maintained after the funding ended? Would the change have occurred without the intervention? Did the programme work equally well on every island?

Answering these questions requires more than administrative monitoring. It demands policy evaluation, social research, socioeconomic analysis and direct consultation with the people and organisations involved.

The same requirement will apply to the programmes designed under the European Union’s future financial framework for 2028–2034. If the specific circumstances of the outermost regions are to be incorporated into European policies, those circumstances must first be identified, measured and explained.

What research will the new European strategy require?

The strategy covers an exceptionally wide range of issues: employment, education, social inclusion, housing, healthcare, migration, energy, water, transport, digital connectivity, food security, economic development, climate change and environmental protection.

Each area requires different evidence, but many of the underlying research needs are similar. European institutions and project partners may need socioeconomic and territorial reports to understand existing conditions before designing an intervention. They may require representative surveys to measure needs, behaviour or public opinion. They may need interviews and focus groups to understand experiences that cannot be reduced to a numerical indicator.

Stakeholder consultation will also become increasingly important. A project affecting transport, tourism, energy, employment or public services cannot be properly evaluated by consulting only the organisation responsible for implementing it. Local authorities, businesses, professional organisations, households, users and communities may all hold relevant parts of the answer.

Comparative research between islands may reveal that an intervention is effective under some conditions but not others. Evaluation studies can identify whether objectives have been achieved and why. Local data collection can fill gaps in official information. Qualitative research can detect implementation problems that remain invisible in administrative records.

None of these techniques should be selected because they are fashionable or because they appeared in the original project proposal.

The method must follow the research question. Sometimes a representative survey is necessary. Sometimes twenty carefully selected interviews will explain more than a thousand questionnaires. In many cases, the strongest design combines quantitative and qualitative evidence: measuring the scale of a problem and then understanding the mechanisms behind it.

Who may need a local research partner in the Canary Islands?

The new European strategy creates a relevant framework for many different organisations.

European institutions and agencies may require territorial evidence, stakeholder consultation or evaluation studies. International universities may need local research capacity for academic projects involving the Canary Islands. Consultancies working on European contracts may require a partner capable of contributing to the methodology as well as executing the fieldwork.

Horizon Europe and Interreg consortia may need surveys, qualitative research, socioeconomic analysis or engagement with local stakeholders. Public administrations and technical-assistance teams may require evidence for programme design, implementation and evaluation.

In each case, the requirement is similar: obtaining reliable information from the Canary Islands and understanding what that information means within the particular conditions of the archipelago. This is why the selection of a local partner should not be treated as a minor operational decision.

A provider may be able to recruit interviewers or distribute an online questionnaire. That does not necessarily mean it can design a representative sample, conduct an institutional interview, moderate a focus group, analyse socioeconomic evidence or explain why the results differ between islands.

The project needs a research partner, not simply a supplier of respondents.

Can a specialised local institute compete with an international consultancy?

The question may appear almost impertinent. A local research institute does not possess the turnover, international offices or enormous organisational charts of the large consulting firms. Fortunately, none of those things conducts an interview, interprets a silence or explains a territorial anomaly.

Large organisations bring scale, specialised teams and experience with international procedures. A local institute brings direct access to the territory, operational capacity, accumulated knowledge and the ability to detect when a technically elegant design does not fit the reality being studied.

The two capacities can complement each other. But they are not interchangeable. An international firm without its own structure in the Canary Islands will eventually need people who understand the territory, can organise the research and know how to interpret what they find. The practical question is whether that local expertise is incorporated at the beginning of the project or purchased at the end as a subcontracted fieldwork service.

The first option produces better research. It also allows local organisations to participate in European projects as genuine research partners, contributing methodological knowledge and analysis instead of merely completing tasks designed elsewhere.

Eureka!: research designed, conducted and interpreted in the Canary Islands

Since 2008, Eureka! Marketing has conducted applied research in the Canary Islands for companies, public institutions and organisations operating in different sectors.

Our work combines quantitative and qualitative methods, including surveys, telephone and face-to-face fieldwork, focus groups, in-depth interviews, observation, stakeholder consultation, market and socioeconomic analysis and the interpretation of primary and secondary data.

We do not approach the Canary Islands as an appendix to a national study. We understand the operational difficulties of conducting research across an archipelago, the differences between islands and the need to adapt each methodology to the population, territory and decisions being studied. We can participate in the complete research process: defining objectives, designing the methodology, conducting the fieldwork, analysing the evidence and translating the findings into conclusions that can be used.

This experience is now integrated into our service for social, economic and territorial research in the Canary Islands, aimed at EU institutions, international universities, consultancies, research consortia and European-funded projects.

Our market research services in the Canary Islands provide the methodological and analytical foundation. Our local fieldwork capacity makes it possible to obtain reliable primary evidence. Our experience allows us to interpret that information within the social, economic and territorial reality of the archipelago.

Whether working independently or collaborating within large-scale international and multidisciplinary consortia, Eureka! delivers robust local execution. We regularly partner with leading global firms to deliver socioeconomic research in the Canary Islands. These institutions rely on us to overcome their lack of local infrastructure, leveraging our established human capital, specialized operational structure, and unparalleled understanding of the regional landscape and its challenges.

A local research partner capable of designing, conducting and interpreting social, economic and territorial research in the Canary Islands.

Because recognising that the Canary Islands are different is only the beginning. The real work consists of investigating those differences, understanding their consequences and converting them into better policies, programmes and decisions.

If your institution, university, consultancy or research consortium is preparing a project involving the Canary Islands, contact Eureka! Marketing and tell us what you need to understand.

The territory should not be an afterthought in the research process. It should be where the research begins.