3ECONOMY + PROJEC HANDBOOK

University teachers who teach in the peripheral regions of the European Union (EU) very often encounter specific difficulties in understanding and explaining the real situation in which these territories find themselves. More specifically, we refer to three specific areas of the social sciences: the macro and microeconomic analysis and financial study of their companies, marketing and dissemination plans and regional tourism strategies.
The main objective of the creation of a manual for teachers, students and organisations and people interested in their knowledge, is to serve as a guide for carrying out their studies and analyses. For this purpose, the territories of Alto Alentejo in Portugal, Malta and the Autonomous City of Melilla chosen as study models. These are very different regions, both culturally and linguistically, and with different difficulties and challenges. However, at the same time, they have proposals for solutions that can be extrapolated to each other because they share being in peripheral areas of the EU. Fortunately, the local and regional development policies that Europe promotes are guides to where public and private efforts should be head up, through its development, social and cohesion funds.
Therefore, the aim is to help other researchers who find little specific information and statistical shortcomings, as the essential points for analysis are presented in a structured way and also allow them to be comparative examples with other regions with similar situations. Knowing the socio-economic reality of our regions can help us to try to counteract the great uprooting of young people, especially those of us who prepare in our universities since they consider that they have no future there because they are in regions far from the most economically active areas.