EUSAIR - Final Report

In the introductory part, the participants were addressed by the representatives
of the European Commission, Jean-Pierre Halkin from the Directorate General
for Regional and Urban Policy and Isabelle Viallon from the Directorate General
for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. One of the goals of the meeting was to establish
regular cooperation in the region in the field of S3.
The contents of the first of a series of planned events, entitled "Against the networking
of smart strategies of the Adriatic-Ionian region – a step towards closer
internationalization", were connected by Simona Kneževič, who planned the
event together with Government Office for Development and European Cohesion
Policy of the Republic of Slovenia.
The participants were acquainted with the implementation of the priority tasks
and goals of the programme for the period 2014-2020 and heard the planned
activities for the period 2021-2027. Aleš Gnamuš presented an assessment
of the situation in the region, with an emphasis on opportunities, on behalf
of the European Institute for Technological Foresight, and the findings of the
Adriatic-Ionian Network OIS-AIR in the field of innovation and Blue Growth were
shared by Croatian colleague Domagoj Šarić.
Slovenia's smart specialization strategy was presented by Gorazd Jenko
from the Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy,
and Gregor Čufer from the European Commission's Directorate General for
Regional and Urban Policy discussed the added value of regional cooperation
and coordinated policy-making, with a focus on EU-supported Blue Growth.
The second day was devoted to a review of many good practices in the field
of Blue Growth, with special emphasis on the blue bio-economy in the Adriatic-
Ionian macro-region. These are projects that are already underway within
various national or international incentives:
Staša Mesec, Project Manager of the EUSAIR Facility Point for the Adriatic-
Ionian Region, presented the idea of closer cooperation among the sectors
covering S3 in the region, which was warmly welcomed by the participants.
Based on the evaluation, Aleksandar Joksimović of the Institute of Marine
Biology in Kotor, informed participants about forecasts of Blue Growth, while
Elena Banci, a leading associate of OIS-AIR from Area Science Park in Trieste,
informed participants about the Blue AIR project. Examples of good practice
were also contributed by Greek colleague Stavros Kalognomos with the topic
"Cultural and creative regional ecosystems", Vladimir Atanasovski from North
Macedonia, from the Centre for Technology Transfer and Innovation of the
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in Skopje and SRIP
Director for the Circular Economy from the Štajerska Chamber of Commerce
Dragica Marinič. Strategic research and innovation partnership for sustainable
food production was presented by Tatjana Zagorc from the Chamber of Commerce
of Slovenia, and they also heard a presentation of the Panoramed project
of the Jožef Stefan Institute explained by Živa Antauer and the PlanetCare
project by Andrej Kržan, from the Institute of Chemistry of Slovenia.
The two-day meeting concluded with the formation of conclusions
on further steps of cooperation among EUSAIR members and agreed
on the next meeting in September 2021.
28 | EUSAIR Slovene Presidency