We are pleased to share with you that the next edition of the interregional cooperation forum, Europe, let’s cooperate, will be held on 22-23 March 2017 in Malta by Interreg Europe. The forum’s goal is to help prepare for the third call of Interreg Europe by facilitating the presentation and exchange of ideas, along with building new partnerships and completing existing ones. As such, it could be especially interesting for regional authorities to attend.
If you are a region in the European Union, you can apply to get co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund for working with other regions (also in the EU), learning from each other and solving common challenges under the following topics: Research & innovation, SME competitiveness, Low-carbon economy, and Environment and resource efficiency.
Research & innovation: aims to support sustainable growth that is increasingly related to the capacity of regional economies to innovate, transform and adapt to challenges. Through the Research and Innovation (R&I) theme, Interreg Europe fosters exchange of experience, capacity building and networking aimed at achieving the ‘smart growth’ envisioned in the Europe 2020 strategy and specifically in the EU Innovation Union flagship.
SME competitiveness: aims to improve policies that can boost entrepreneurship and support SMEs – in all stages of their life cycle – by helping them to grow and innovate and breaking down the barriers that prevent business growth. Through the SME Competitiveness theme, Interreg Europe fosters exchange of experience, capacity building and networking aimed at helping SMEs to grow in regional, national and international markets.
Low carbon economy: aims to reconcile the twin goals of carbon abatement and economic growth. Through the Low-carbon Economy theme, Interreg Europe fosters the exchange of experience and collection of best practices towards a low-carbon economy and how growth is achieved as a result of integrating all aspects of the economy around technologies and practices with low emissions.
Environment and resource efficiency: aims to better protect natural and cultural heritage and use Earth’s limited resources in a sustainable manner. Through the Environment and resource efficiency theme, Interreg Europe can help regions to find practices to answer regional challenges, such as preparing sustainable exploitation models for natural and cultural heritage assets, developing and integrating green infrastructure, encouraging SMEs to assess and address resource use issues, or, reducing waste volumes in SMEs and households.
If you are interested in working on Interreg Europe projects, please fill out this short survey by 20 March to help us help you network, build your consortia and develop a strong proposal.
For any additional information you might need, please feel free to get in touch with the AER Secretariat.
