Month: November 2023

Hi everyone! My name is Antonella and I’m 26 years old. I am an Italian IVY volunteers at the National Confederation of Craft and Small and Medium Enterprises for a small project called SFERA that means Strategic Framework for Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas, in the context of the Interreg Italy-Croatia programme. /*! elementor – v3.17.0 – 08-11-2023 */ .elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=”.svg”]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block} In the program areas, despite SME success, there remains a gap between urban and rural SMEs, leaving a potential avenue for growth underutilized. Rural SMEs have traditionally lagged behind their urban counterparts in terms of innovation and growth potential. However, with digitization driving the knowledge-based economy, the geographic location of SMEs is becoming less relevant, opening the door to new opportunities and markets. SFERA project aims to overcome the cross-border legal and administrative obstacles and improve the institutional and strategic capacities of public authorities and stakeholders in the Programme area. The overall objective of SFERA is to promote an integrated governance model that fosters stronger cooperation among stakeholders. By adopting an integrated approach, the project partners aim to create a supportive ecosystem that goes beyond just providing funding or infrastructure, and that recognizes the complexity and multi-dimensionality of entrepreneurship. Through communication activities, project aims to improve overall general awareness about importance of entrepreneurship in rural area, and create a dialogue between institutions dedicated to territorial development. Through wide dissemination of project results, partners will be dedicated to empowering diverse stakeholders to implement and/or engage with the development and improvement of the framework conditions for entrepreneurship in rural areas, promote shared learning and spread/share out of governance innovations. In this particular context is where I come into play. The Lead Partner has placed their trust in my hands, because an organized communication is an important step for the successful execution of the project, by putting into practice my skills and knowledge acquired during my studies in Rome and my internship in Rome. I am responsible for supporting communication efforts, including tasks like managing email and social media marketing, editing photos and videos, and providing assistance in event coordination. What I have learnt is that European cohesion policy and European projects are like the glue that holds the European Union together. They work to ensure that no community is left behind and that everyone has the opportunity to thrive. European projects foster collaboration between different regions of Europe. People share ideas, learn from others and work together to address common challenges. This sharing of knowledge and resources helps improve the quality of everyone’s life. The discovery of IVY was an extremely significant step during my early ventures into the world of work. After graduating, it provided me with the opportunity to acquire new skills and apply what I had studied and experienced during my internship. The trust that people who have been in this profession for many years place in me is the most fulfilling aspect, beyond the discovery of a world that fascinates me more and more, and that I am eager to continue exploring. – Antonella Notarangelo, IVY Project Partner for the Interreg Italy – Croatia project SFERA, at CNA Bari – National Confederation of Craft and Small and Medium Enterprises

What is my structure’s main goal?  The Technical Secretariat Structure (i.e. TSS) corresponds to the coordinating body of the EU Strategy for the Alps (i.e. EUSALP). The TSS project was decided upon during the 2021 French Presidency and ultimately launched at the beginning of 2023; its creation aimed at coordinating activities and events organised by the nine EUSALP Action Groups, providing them and the annually rotating Presidency with technical and administrative support. For this purpose, the TSS is composed of its manager, three policy officers, one governance officer, and one communication officer; the whole team is split across the administrative districts of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur Region (France), the Lombardy Region (Italy), and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region (France). Originally, the TSS project committed to enhance institutional capacity of public authorities and stakeholders to implement macro-regional territorial strategies.  TSS launch (kick-off meeting): On February 6th and 7th, the kick-off meeting marked the launch of the Support EUSALP project and the TSS taking office in Nice. The event was attended by DGRegio’s representatives, the 16 Project Partners’ representatives, the TSS staff, and the Action Groups leaders. ©Frédéric de Favernay How do I help my structure to reach its goal?  As an IVY reporter, I help the TSS team with communication-related tasks and support youth-related missions as well. As of today, the TSS’s main objectives are to coordinate EUSALP governance bodies (Work Package 1), to support Action Groups’ activities and to foster embedding (Work Package 2), and to involve the Alpine youth and EUSALP stakeholders in the process (Work Package 3).  As during the year 2023, which was dedicated to the EUSALP Swiss Presidency, various events took place, including three Presidency thematic conferences, three meetings of the EUSALP Executive Board, two meetings of the Executive Board and the Board of Action Group Leaders, four Steering Group meetings, one Annual Forum, and further Action Groups’ thematic conferences revolving around their fields of expertise. As an IVY reporter, I have been required to attend remotely some of them as early as August to take notes to write ensuing meeting-minutes and one-pagers to be published on the EUSALP official website afterwards and forwarded to the members of the Executive Board, the nine Action Groups, and the Swiss Presidency. Prior to the events, I also designed announcements such as saves-the-date, calls for participants and registration, event plannings, etc… which were later published on the EUSALP official website and other EUSALP social media (i.e. notably Instagram and LinkedIn).  In the meantime, I have been given responsibility over specific tasks related to the EUSALP contact database to update it and gather the information, to upload it on the press relations and public affairs software Augure, to create emailing lists and send mailings to the entire database. As the communication officer is currently particularly involved in the great process of refining the EUSALP official website in coordination with private contractors, I was required from time to time to proofread some articles; this task has been mainly led in English so far, but I still had the opportunity to use the other languages I know for secondary missions (i.e. writing and proofreading articles in French for the PACA Région and the French National Agency for Territorial Cohesion, proofreading a call for application in German and handling the funding request for a documentary book about the Alps written in German). The organisation of the EUSALP annual photo competition project was also handed over to me and for this purpose I worked on the bylaw, edited the legal forms, and got in touch with EUSALP partners that already have had experience in this field (i.e. the Alpine Convention).  Besides, my help has also been required for more down-to-earth tasks and missions, such as printing and preparing folders for the TSS team prior to major meetings, editing price estimates for call for tenders and business trips. For upcoming November, I am requested to welcome guests and finalists for the 2023 edition of the Pitch-your-Project competition in Strasbourg.  2023 Annual Forum (EUSALP wheel handing over): During the 2023 EUSALP Annual Forum, Mr Fasel (left), Switzerland’s State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, jointly with Mr Dieth (right), President of the Conference of Cantonal Governments, handed over the EUSALP wheel to Mr Štucin (center), Slovenia’s State Secretary for European Affairs, representing the incoming 2024 Slovenian Presidency. ©David Schweizer. Who benefits from my engagement in this structure?  Overall, my engagement in the TSS benefits its staff, EUSALP main partners and Action Groups as my missions consist of promoting their events prior and after the date, coordinating internal communication while updating the contact database and embedding mailing lists. My engagement also helps to foster youth participation and opportunities in the EUSALP governance process thanks to my logistical dedication to the PYP projects, besides processing secondary posts on social media.  More generally, the TSS outputs benefit local, regional, and national public authorities, sectoral agencies, interest groups (including NGOs), higher education and research organisations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), European groupings of territorial cooperation (EGTCs), and civil society in general.  How do project partners cooperate?  The EUSALP project partners are 16 in total, and their cooperation relies on their participation in the different EUSALP bodies and their capacity to provide the TSS with material and financial support (contributions from project partners amounting 358.125 euros to 90.000 for a total of more than 1 million euros, besides more than 3 million euros allocated by the ERDF for the period 2023-2025). Among the 16 main partners, 13 are coordinating and (co-)leading Action Groups; one partner is specifically responsible for youth involvement. Those 16 partners constitute the EUSALP Steering Group which gathers three times a year; each of them is represented by one deputy and one substitute. From time to time, Project Partner Meetings are organised and for this occasion up to 3 more representatives per project partner are invited (i.e. finance representative, legal representative, communication representative). For the year 2023, four Steering Group meetings were organised in February (extraordinary Project Partner Meeting as