Interreg Europe as connector for cooperation on cohesion policy priorities
On 16 May 2024, Nicolas Singer, Head of Unit for projects and the Platform, and Marc Pattinson, Senior Thematic Expert for a Smarter Europe at the Policy Learning Platform, participated in a webinar organised by the S3Community of Practice. The objective was to share insights on how to utilise Interreg Europe to strengthen interregional cooperation as part of the European cohesion policy priorities.
Almost 100 participants included S3 practitioners, policymakers and key network stakeholders and members of the S3 CoP Interregional Working Group. The Policy Learning team highlighted the essential role that Interreg Europe projects can play in laying the foundations for long term and sustainable interregional cooperation and helping regions prepare for joint funding and investment projects such as those presented by I3 (DG Regio’s Interregional Innovation Investment initiative presented by Eric Koch from EISMEA).
Interreg Europe projects are successful in levering up to five times their project budgets from ERDF funding and supporting building capacity and aligning strategic objectives for sustainable development that can lever further follow up project based funding. Interregional cooperation between regions with different degrees of innovation experiences and competences can clearly help accelerate cohesion policy implementation and create interesting value chain partnerships aligned with regional Smart specialisation priorities.
Other speakers and regional networks that joined the webinar included ERRIN and ECRN and two interesting case studies involving 'periphery' regions, La Réunion and Malta – both regular participants in Interreg Europe projects and Policy Learning initiatives.
In their conclusions the speakers highlighted how the Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform services can accelerate interregional cooperation, for example :
- Access Projects and Good Practice data base to search for interregional policy cooperation tools that work
- Utilise PLP services such as Peer Reviews to accelerate policy learning and create foundations for new interregional networks/projects
- Join Policy Workshops to learn and contribute to State of the Art policy development
You can watch the full recording of the webinar