DAY ONE – Monday 10 February

The Partnership meeting was opened with a welcome speech by the Deputy Director of the coordinator city of Haarlem,  Catrien Lenstra, setting the scene for the upcoming two-day meeting. The main goals were then outlined by the Coordinator, Valentina Schippers-Opejko. She presented some of the resources developed by the coordinating city, including this video, infographics about the deliverables of the Partnership (translated in 11 European languages) and  a leaflet.

Jan Maarten de Vet from Ecorys presented the overall picture by using the story-telling.

This presentation was followed by a plenary session in which the work of the Partnership was presented, and Action leaders for all 7 Actions went through individual Actions, their final amendments, and how they fit into the overall story line of the Partnership.  Some final suggestions on how to improve these were made during the session.

The final session of the day was delivered by Vassilis Tsanidis from the Region of Central Macedonia. He presented the Mechanism for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support which is a structure supervised by the Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support Division and has been launched with the aim of monitoring the interventions of the Smart Specialization Strategy (RIS3). He also provided some key elements regarding the work of the Region on innovative procurement.

DAY TWO – Tuesday 11 February

Gary Robinson presented the work of the Scottish Government regarding Innovation. Barriers to innovation were presented, notably regarding management and coordination but also funding mechanisms. The Scotcap project was included as a case study, and lessons learned were presented to the Partnership.

In the following session, Partnership members were invited to reflect on how the results of the Partnership could be disseminated once the Partnership will no longer exist as such. The group divided in two smaller groups and ideas were shared during a plenary session. The role of Haarlem, the European Commission, and all members of the Partnership was highlighted as crucial in dissemination of the work carried out thus far, and Partners were encouraged to use the tools available to them, including Futurium, the Urban Agenda newsletter and social media channels.

Elodie Salle and Jan Maarten de Vet from Ecorys presented the results of the questionnaire about the evaluation of Urban Agenda and recommendations for the future partnerships.

Towards the end of the day, the focus was on next steps for the Partnership, and participants discussed activities that will be undertaken until June, when the final Partnership meeting is scheduled to take place. The Partnership will organise a final meeting on European strategical level on 9th June in Brussels, a final event for cities and regions during the European Week of Regions and Cities 2020 in the week of 12-15October and an event for the practitioners during the Procura+ event at the end of 2020.