
Having adapted to the organisation and the new working environment, I am now in a position to explain what an IVY volunteer does, how much he/she gets involved in his/her project and how formative it can be.
In my case, I am part of the INCUBTRANS project, although thanks to the Galicia Europa Foundation I have been able to learn about other POCTEP projects, and my knowledge about funding opportunities and European events is now much greater than before.
INCUBTRANS aims to create a cross-border incubator in the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion to promote sustainable business creation, skilled employment and value creation in this border area. In other words, it seeks to facilitate entrepreneurship and digitalisation, to make the area more attractive and to tackle both depopulation and population ageing.
It focuses on issues such as the agro-industrial sector, digitalisation and the search for young talent.

In line with this, for example, I have participated in an event organised by the Galicia Europa Foundation, called: “New opportunities in the agro-industrial sector”, which precisely brought together and trained entrepreneurs from the wine and almond sector, both Spanish and Portuguese, to face the internationalisation of their SMEs and make them more competitive at a global level.
On the other hand, apart from the presence and participation in events, we also must take into account the day-to-day work in the office. Writing press releases, following up on communication with partners and maintaining regular correspondence to ensure coordination is part of the experience.
In addition, you have the opportunity to meet many of your project partners, people who possess the skills to teach you numerous things, and you get to explore the organisational models and ways of working of a wide variety of entities.
All this, plus the training part of approaching such large and new projects in a theoretical way, generates a lot of knowledge, and takes you out of your comfort zone, so it’s a great experience, whether you have a special interest in how Europe works, or are looking to improve your knowledge.
– Hernán Rodríguez Iglesias, Interreg Project Partner at Galicia Europa Foundation in the framework of INCUBTRANS project