Who?
Regional and local authorities from 11 countries joined forces for PRESERVE project. All partners have already had experiences in the development of sustainable tourism policies which contributed to the effectiveness of the peer reviews during the project. AER was the lead partner in the PRESERVE project. The partner were:
• Abruzzo Region (Italy)
• Alba County (Romania)
• Alytus County (Lithuania)
• Banská Bystrica (Slovakia)
• Carinthia (Austria)
• Calabria (Italy)
• Észak-Alföld (Hungary)
• IC Styria (Austria)
• Jönköping (Sweden)
• Örebro (Sweden)
• Province of Avila (Spain)
• South Denmark (Denmark)
• Sterea Ellada (Greece)
• Tuscany (Italy).
What?
The main objective of PRESERVE was to contribute to an improved effectiveness of regional development policies, specifically of regional polices considering cultural heritage as an endogenous factor of economic development and supporting sustainable tourism.
Based on commonly defined methodologies, the partners exchanged best practices in the field, mainly through the means of on-site peer reviews and exchange seminars. These activities contributed to improved capacities and knowledge of local and regional stakeholders, and therefore, to improved local and regional policies.
When?
‘Peer Reviews for Sustainable Eco-Regions via Europe’ project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund. PRESERVE was one of 35 regional initiative projects that were approved from the 492 applications received under the first call of INTERREG IVC. The project duration was 3 years, between 1st November 2008 and 31st December 2011.
Why?
The EU is struggling to become “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”. All policies are interrelated and mutually supportive. Hence, those must be based on a holistic approach. This approach was used in PRESERVE project, with a focus of landscape and cultural heritage policy.
What is AER’s role and how to get involved? |
|---|
| AER was the lead partner of the project. Thus, PRESERVE was built upon AER’s peer review programme, which began in 2006 with peer reviews on regional economic development and has since continued with peer re-views on tourism and the work of AER’s tourism network. In the testing phase of the methodology, the 6 peer reviews planned were carried out and reports were published. Then, partners implemented the recommendations from the reports by drafting regional action plans. |
| You can find more information on INTERREG IVC Programme website.
A minimum of 3 practices for host regions and one good practice from peer regions were collected by partner regions. Fact sheets on the results were produced, in more details, 36 good practices are available on the INTERREG IVC Good practice database. |
 |
The project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund under the INTERREG IVC programme. |
Useful links
Events
- Kick-off Meeting of PRESERVE – AER Office, Brussels (B), 6 November 2008
- How to foster sustainable tourism in the regions: Regions work concretely together in PRESERVE – Alba (RO), 17 March 2010
- 1st European Regions Energy Day – Brussels (B), 29 April 2010
- PRESERVE final conference: Regions showcase their tourism best practices – Siena, Tuscany (I), 20th October 2011
Our related articles
Thematic dossier n°20 on Sustainable tourism – Spring 2009
Contacts
Johanna Pacevicius – Policy & Knowledge Transfer, AER
