2nd stakeholder meeting in Zemgale
On 13 February, the second meeting of the Zemgale region stakeholders took place, bringing together representatives of municipalities, business experts and other professionals.
During the meeting, the head of the Zemgale Entrepreneurship Centre talked about entrepreneurship projects under EU funding programmes, future cooperation opportunities and future plans. Zemgale’s InnoCom project manager presented the latest developments of the project, while the representative of InnoMatrix Ltd. shared the findings of the study Communication of Public Administration with Small and Medium Enterprises in Zemgale Planning Region.
The Regional analysis of public administration communication with small and medium-sized enterprises in the Zemgale planning region was also presented to the group. The report will serve as a basis for improving the business support environment and the Development Programme in Zemgale and will illustrate the current situation in the region to project partners and experts. It will also inform the implementation of the upcoming project activity of peer reviews of policy instruments.
The aim of the study is to analyse the situation, communication tools and approaches used by public organisations to disseminate information to entrepreneurs and involve them in public calls, tenders, grants or projects, and to gather examples of good practice. This is done in order to identify weaknesses and obstacles in communication, as well as to identify gaps in existing policy and administrative instruments that would allow to simplify communication and improve communication and relations between public administrations and SMEs. At the moment, it has been established that the strength of the Zemgale region is a strong and unified business support network, and in ZPR there is effective cooperation between various business support institutions. However, the development of specialised support programmes for the region that meet the unique needs of different regions, business sectors and sizes is an opportunity for further development.
In the second part of the meeting, participants performed group work, where they identified the existing good practices of the region in communication with entrepreneurs, identified obstacles in the current communication methods, and also provided recommendations for improvements and solutions to reduce existing obstacles.