A year of REGIO Communities

A new year of activities of the REGIO Peer2Peer Communities has started and we want to address this message to all Community practitioners and ‘wannabe practitioners’, taking a look back to the work done in the Communities in 2022 and with a look at the next appointments.
What happened in 2022 in the Communities? Here some facts and figures:

• Last year, 10 REGIO Peer2Peer Communities were (extremely) active. They are organising meetings and activities also in 2023.

• The Administrative Capacity Building Roadmaps (ACB) Community consolidated its ownership; Community practitioners shared their knowledge and practices in the elaboration of their ACB Roadmaps linked to ERDF programmes. Co-creation and pro-active approach are the main features of this group, and Community ‘Champions’ Marina Hudolin, Mafalda Ferreira and Kostas Raftopoulos are highly contributing to its activities and success.

• The Community on State Aid was restarted in April. Thanks to its experienced Community ‘Champions’ Palma Muñoz Morquilla and Liezelotte Dechrywere, the Community is proactively analysing the challenges of the new GBER, the incentive effect, as well as many other specific themes.

• Between May and June, seven new Communities were launched: Public Procurement, Citizen Participation, Selection of Operations, Digital Administration, Circular Economy, NRRP and Cohesion, DNSH. The Embedding cooperation Community was then launched in December.

• The Communities organised 31 online meetings, with an average participation in each meeting of over 35 practitioners of ERDF, CF and JTF, joining from all EU Member States. Meetings had a high level of interaction with the use of collaborative platforms, breakout rooms for parallel discussion, groupworks, and the co-creation of Community tools on specific themes.

• The Communities also organised 3 very successful in-person workshops, with the support of TAIEX-REGIO Peer2Peer: State Aid practitioners met in Brussels in September, and ACB Roadmaps practitioners met in Lisbon in June, and again in Brussels in November. The workshops, facilitated by t33 experts, allowed for a sound co-working on specific themes, and they reinforced relations within the Communities. In 2023, a meeting of the Selection of Operations and DNSH Communities is planned in Copenhagen in March, and a workshop of the State Aid Community will take place in Sofia in April.

Ownership, continuity and co-creativity will be the key words of 2023.

The State Aid Community is preparing its next meeting in Sofia (26-27 April), where themes related to the new GBER and the relation between State aid and CPR rules will be debated, proposing potential solutions.
The Selection of Operations and DNSH Communities are preparing the joint community meeting in Copenhagen (22-23 March). More than 80 practitioners will meet in the Danish capital to discuss and review their practices on the new ‘Do No Significant Harm’ principle and on the project selection in this first phase of implementation of the new ERDF programmes.
The ACB Roadmaps Community is evolving into the Administrative Capacity Building Community: practitioners will continue working on their Roadmaps, and they are enlarging the Community scope and encouraging more practitioners to join the debate and reflect on the future role of Capacity Building in ESIF and Cohesion Policy.
All other Communities are continuing their activities.
Here the upcoming meetings:

• Community on NRRP – Cohesion Policy: 2 March (online)

• Community on ACB Roadmaps: 9 March (online)

• Community on Embedding Cooperation: 14 March (online)

• Communities on DNSH and Selection of Operations: 22-23 March (Copenhagen)

 
Many novelties are coming, stay tuned! To make sure you do not miss information, follow us on Twitter and in the Futurium webspace, that is also a repository of materials used and produced in Community meetings.
Join the REGIO Peer2Peer adventure and present your ideas for this new year! You can propose a Community on a specific topic and/or become a champion of a Community: bring your input and energy, share your views, learn and get inspired by other practitioners!
t33 is managing the Communities on behalf of DG REGIO, together with its partners Spatial Foresight and ÖIR: the core team is composed by Lorenzo Palego, Clarissa Amichetti, and Alexandra Houlière that coordinate Community managers  on all themes.

We hope to see you soon in our next activities!