Unemployment, having become a major challenge affecting regions all across Europe, it is now ever the more important to implement smarter, targeted regional policies aiming to support job creation within each local economy.
With this objective in mind AER held a breakfast briefing at the House of Dutch Provinces in Brussels on 24 January, to present how regions can effectively share best practices on improving employment strategies within the INTERREG IVC Smart Europe project, a consortium of 13 partners aiming to boost employment in innovation based sectors. Within Smart Europe the AER Regional Peer Review methodology successfully provided a framework to improve policies at the regional level in fields such as cluster development and SME support, key drivers for regional development.