The fourth meeting of the Partnership on Jobs and Skills in the Local Economy (8 February 2018, Jelgava) focused on the composition of the draft Action Plan. The partners agreed on some key themes to inform its finalisation. This discussion took place in three workshop sessions:

The workshop on Valorisation of R&D and Business Location (Infrastructure) centred around these points for action:

• Thematic objective for regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods; flexibility in integrated territorial investments (ITI); change of De-minimis for investments in innovative start-ups; eligible costs for real-estate in deprived areas; harmonization of state aid regulation between urban and rural sectors for municipal infrastructure

The workshop on Next Economy and Education and Skills focused on the following key themes:

• Transition from one model to the ‘next’; the urban/local role in Regional Innovation Strategies (RiS3); funding the Next Economy; addressing the skills mismatch; improving the required labour market skills; promoting future labour market needs and skills

The workshop on Public Services and Effective Local Government tried to analyse in depth ways for the generation of the conditions for business development in cities. Partners agreed that for this subject, governance and public services (especially those connected to employment services) are key.

This meeting gave the partners and especially the action leaders a lot of homework: The Partnership plans to publish the draft Action Plan for stakeholder input and commenting in a Public Feedback in summer 2018. Stay up-to-date on this process via this website and Twitter!