NEWS

Project start: EmPower

The first of July was the official starting date of the project EmPower (full project title EmPowerment of SME to Network for Intelligent Energy“). In EmPower, 12 institutions from four European regions are cooperating: Tartu in Estonia, West-Macedonia in Greece, Aragon in Spain and Saxony in Germany. Within the next three years (till June 2013), the partners will work together to foster the dissemination of intelligent energy technologies whose potential is not yet fully used, to support small businesses to better market their intelligent energy solutions in the partner regions, and to initiate technology transfer. The project belongs to the EU programme “Intelligent Energy Europe” (IEE) and has a budget of roughly 1.8 million euro.

SECOND CHANCE … makes creative.

On 15 July project partners, interested and invited speakers met during the Opening Conference of the Central Europe Project SECOND CHANCE at “Auf AEG” in Nur-emberg (DE). With focus on culture and creativity the project aims on the reawakening of former industrial sites in Nuremberg, Venice, Ljubljana, Krakow and Leipzig. What are the contributions of culture to spur the development of former industrial sites? How can public-private partnerships (PPP) be used to increase the investments on such ar-eas? And what is the value of transnational cooperation’s to revitalise brownfield sites? In different presentations and a panel discussion these and further questions were discussed with experts from the different thematic fields. Hence, SECOND CHANCE aims on the challenge to jointly develop sustainable development poten-tials on former industrial sites in a projects running time of 3,5 years. That the successful re-use of borwnfield sites in cultural work- and living spaces is possible, was presented by representatives from the “Ufa Fabrik” cultural centre in Berlin (DE), the ’Het Paleis’ in Groningen (NL) and the Kaapelitehdas cultural centre in Helsinki (FIN). Motivation, persuasiveness and staying power have shown at all three presented sites that ‘they’ deserve a “second chance”.

On June the 21st and 22nd the public kick-off conference of project SMART+ was held in Bourgas (Bulgaria). The Conference was used to introduce the start of the project work. The participants discussed current obstacles and challenges with regard to practical transfer of technology and promotion of innovation. Experts of Spain, Poland, Romania, Germany and Bulgaria referred about success and current barriers to strengthen particularly the innovation capacities of SMEs. All actors of this area are connected by the European frame, especially because European funding programs have an important relevance in this field of intervention. It was discussed, which instruments are regional available in order to forward the benefits of cooperation and institutional competition. In this context, Mrs. Dr. Tcholakova – Honorary German Consul in Plovdiv and representative of the German-Bulgarian chamber of commerce and industry – highlighted the importance of cooperation as an essential aspect of competiveness. The importance of human resources as an substantial factor in a complex process of knowledge transfer was highlighted as driving force in spite of different national and regional circumstances. The broad interest in the business location Saxony as well as in projects of the Free State can be seen as a positive signal for successful labor in the region.

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