Starting January 2017, we have a new and challenging project to work on: Improving Capacities for Enhancing Territorial Attractiveness of the Danube Region (ATTRACTIVE-DANUBE).
The main project objective is to strengthen multilevel and transnational governance and institutional capacities of policy planners involved in territorial development of the Danube Region, which will result in more harmonised governance system of the area. This will be achieved by firstly establishing a permanent common transnational platform for monitoring territorial attractiveness (CO-TAMP), 11 national platforms (TAMP), and Territorial attractiveness atlas. Secondly, we will implement an intensive capacity building programme for empowering multilevel public authorities and civil society in 11 countries related to development planning resulting in enhanced skills and knowledge. Finally, the policy integration process, including transnational workshops, policy recommendations and memorandum of understanding, will capitalise the results and assure the long-term impact and leverage effect in the society.
As leaders of the Work Package 5, we have had our first Quality Management Board meeting in Ljubljana in January, and the Kick-off meeting in beautiful Prague, in February, which was co-organized together with the National Czech and Slovak INSPIRE Conference.
The event was held from 14th to 15th Feb. 2017 at the Park Inn Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic. The main theme that each presentation contained significantly more than before, was a blend of sustainable development, at local level – within municipalities, cities and regions.
Both days of the conference were attended by 120 people from 10 European countries, mainly from central and Eastern Europe. The first day took place entirely in English; this was due to the participation of the project partners. The second day alternated between presentations in the Czech and Slovak language. The event had the support of the European Commission – the speakers were made-up of representatives of the European Commission and JRC – European Commission Joint Research Centre.
On the second day, within the contributions of the INSPIRE conference a series of stimulating information materialized, how various data (not just that collected within INSPIRE), contribute to a better functioning of the office and in raising public awareness; in short, towards making a city work better, so that it is more open to its citizens and so that the people living in it feel good. In this application, the data should be of good quality, accessible and ideally harmonized into one single form. At the same time it is necessary to address how to handle and access large volumes of data, to correctly interpret the data, get the required information and make them available to the general public. Data published within the INSPIRE Directive can significantly help the whole process. Citizens themselves can be more involved in decision-making processes, or contribute to the collection of data – for this reason community projects are more increasingly being exploited.
