Territorial Intelligence, a Collective Challenge for Sustainable Development: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Territorial Intelligence is a practice devoted to obtaining, analysing and valuing information and knowledge about a territory and its environment to design and implement territorial plans on strategic matters. The purpose of this article is to provide a broad overview about the meaning of Territorial Intelligence in academic literature covering the definitions of the concept and the main topics involved. A scoping review following the PRISMA-ScR method has been carried out. Online databases were used to identify scientific articles and theses published between 2000 and 2020, from which, after screening, 33 key documents were selected, mainly of French origin. Qualitative analyses were performed following the technique of the Seven Key Questions (7W). Territorial Intelligence began in France as an application of Economic Intelligence, but it is becoming an autonomous discipline, expanding to other countries and generating specific applications, such as Tourist Intelligence, in the last decade. It is concluded that three elements characterize current Territorial Intelligence: the consideration as a collective process that involves the participation of multiple agents, the integration of external sources of information with territorial agents’ own internal knowledge and a focus on collaboration to promote sustainable development with a global vision.