ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the research presented in the arrangement of support for regional learning and innovation in rural Saarland with regard to globalization and regionalization. Globalization increasingly shapes and challenges European regional development. Elbe argues that regionalization is a specialization, while Benz and Furst talk of spatial positioning and a concretion of globalization, regionalization and regional development together with globalization being two faces of one coin. Saarland is a federal state in Western Germany, with strong cross-border links to the neighbouring countries of Luxembourg and Northeastern France. The formerly used term 'Saar-Lor-Lux' referred primarily to the industrialized borderland of Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg. The chapter focuses on two aspects of globalization that are obvious in parts of rural Saarland: international migration into rural north-western Saarland; and capacity building, governance and knowledge systems as a globalization-driven regionalization process.
