Mapping of mainstream and innovative policies and strategies

This dataset comprises secondary data collected as part of the EXIT project, drawing on sources from eight countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The dataset is built from two primary source types. The first consists of academic literature produced by international scholars, including country-specific contributions from researchers based in each of the eight participating nations. The second consists of policy documents gathered at the national level across all eight countries, capturing the legislative, strategic, and programmatic frameworks that governments have developed in relation to left-behind areas. Together, these materials provide a cross-national comparative foundation for examining how left-behind areas have been defined, targeted, and addressed through public policy, and how the effectiveness and uptake of various approaches have varied over time and across the eight countries included in the study.