The MAESTRALE project, financed by the Mediterranean program, and joined by Informest participated as partner, is closing: it was a great journey during which the project partnership proved that it is possible to look for a future that includes blue energy in the Mediterranean area.

The BLUE KEP Guidebook, the project co-financed by the INTERREG Italy-Croatia program and with Informest as lead-partner, has just come out. The publication contains the description of the main project features , the implementation of the activities during the 21 months and the results achieved.

The first newsletter was published on the RESPONSe website; it presents - with an attractive and immediate infographic - the aims and project activities, the partners and some best practices already implemented. The newsletter is Italian, Croatian and English, a way to be close to the stakeholders of the Italian and Croatian coasts and open to all who are sensitive and interested in the issues of the climate change.

The Project SISMA, financed by the Program Interreg Med, with Informest as Lead Partner, will be present at the European Sustainable Energy Week that will held in Bruxelles from 4th of 8th of June. The most important event on on energy efficiency and renewable energy has come to his thirteenth edition and this year will be focused on the topic of energy transition: politic development, good pratices, ideas and initiatives to support the transition to a clean, safe and efficient energy.

Available in English and French the first newsletter of MAESTRALE project, co-financed by Interreg MED project and leaded by University of Siena. The project aims to broaden the sharing of knowledge among scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs and citizens in the Mediterranean area and encourage effective measures and investments for the Blue Growth, key sector of sustainable growth by promoting the creation and transnational networking of innovation clusters.

School renovations: Quick – affordable – green and healthy.

These are goals of the Renew School project, financed by Intelligent Energy Europe, where Informest acts as partner.

In the video it can be seen how the use of quick and sustainable technologies like prefabricated timber elements for the constructions and renewables for the energy supply can significantly downsize the energy use of schools and create and secure comfortable and healthy conditions for the pupils and teachers.

www.renew-school.eu


Video: Quick – affordable – green and healthy

The EU funded Twinning Project "Further strengthening of capacities of phytosanitary sector in the fields of plant protection products, plant health and seeds and seedlings, including phytosanitary laboratories and phytosanitary inspections”, implemented in Bosnia and Hercegovina by Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Policies in partnership with State Inspectorate for Plant Health and Seed Inspection of Poland, with Informest acting as Mandated Body, has achieved several important results.

It is available on-line the e-book "Eco-Industrial Park - A green and place marketing approach" by Matteo Caroli, Marino Cavallo and Alfredo Valentino published in the framework of MER project “Marketing and governing innovative industrial areas” www.merproject.eu financed by MED Programme. During the last few years the transition from a non-sustainable to a sustainable world is becoming the main goal for scholars and practitioners. The extant study shows the centrality of “industry-environment” interactions in this process. Especially, following the idea of natural cycles, industrial ecologists are redefining the industrial facilities and infrastructures to optimize waste management and to reduce global pollution. In this context the most powerful tool is Eco-Industrial Park.

You can download the presentations and recordings of launch event held in Bologna on December 9th and 10th from Programme website. You can find plenary session presentations on general themes (Challenges in the Adriatic – Ionian Area; ADRION Programme – Key points; First call for proposals – Main features; SMART Communication) and also the presentations of parallel sessions for Project networking on Specific Objective 1.1 Support the development of a regional Innovation system for the Adriatic-Ionian area and  Specific Objective 2.1 Promote the sustainable valorization and preservation of natural and cultural assets as growth assets in the Adriatic-Ionian area;

The European Commission adopted today the new transnational cooperation programme “Interreg V B Adriatic-Ionian (ADRION)”, worth more than €83.4 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and almost €16 million from the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II). The total value of the cooperation programme, with national contributions included, is €118 million.

The Programme will support the implementation of the priorities of the European Union Strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Region (EUSAIR).  It will enhance economic, social, and territorial cohesion in the region. The programme’s geographical area is identical to the area covered by the EUSAIR, involving four EU countries (Greece, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia), with the participation of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) puts forward the growing impact of cultural and creatives industries (CCI) in the European economy as this sector has become third larger employer in the EU-following construction and beverages sectors- and its contribution to GDP amounts to between 4.4% and 6.8%. Within this framework, the EESC calls on the European Commission to draw up a multi-annual strategy for the development of these industries. In particular, the EESC calls for the external dimension of this sector which boosts the European Union's international influence, to be integrated into all on-going bilateral and multilateral negotiations.

Transnational cooperation beyond national borders improves regional innovation, supports the uptake of renewable energy, inspires the greening of transport and helps preserve natural and cultural heritage in central Europe. These and other interesting insights can be found in six thematic studies, which were commissioned by the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme at the end of the programming period 2007-2013. The EU cohesion policy programme financed 124 cooperation projects in nine central European countries.

The six studies are recommended to regional policy makers as well as potential project developers. They are available here.

In late May closed the Call "The European Union and the challenges of integration in the Balkans", under the section "Social Challenges" of Horizon 2020. The two-way process of enlargement / integration of the Western Balkans reported a clear deadlock. After more than a decade is necessary to review not only the Community approach but the way in which the countries concerned deal with the multi-year constraints of various kinds (political, social and economic) that affect them. Research proposals that integrate not only the different dimensions but also the double perspective enlargement / integration may be useful to review the EU's approach in order to make back the enlargement policy an effective tool.

Marketing and govERning innovative industrial areas integrated guidelines – A Handbook, has
been developed by the MER partners in the framework of MED Programme. The Handbook addresses
critical issues for policy development at local and hopefully at European level, in order to
increase the European territorial competitiveness and attractiveness by applying green
marketing tools and strategies to the promotion of industrial areas.

In the framework of REMIDA Project, the partnership has cooperated on a vademecum "Sources of public funds for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources" monitoring the "status quo" of the possible sources of financing at EU, national and regional level topics related to energy efficiency and energy from renewable sources in the 7 partner countries. 

Project mission is to downsize the energy use in schools significantly. At the same time create and secure comfortable and healthy conditions for the pupils and teachers. All this through the implementation of technologies that save energy, reduce CO2-emissions and improve the indoor air quality. By using prefabricated timber elements as the core of the renovation process, the building quality will greatly increase, while construction costs and time will be reduced.

The project assists municipalities, school owners/-financiers and companies with appropriate tools and solutions and offers exchange possibilities for them.

The second meeting of the Project RENEW SCHOOL will take place on  21-24 October 2014 in Oslo, Norway. The project promotes the sustainable renovation of school buildings based on three key elements: the outer envelope, façade,  of the building with wooden prefabricated modules with wooden windows, solar shading and ventilation components; improved quality of the indoor environment ( IEQ ) by ventilation , passive cooling and use of natural light ; energy savings through the use of renewable sources of energy in school buildings .

During the meetings scheduled in Oslo and coordinated by the local partner ASPLAN VIAK http://www.asplanviak.no  , concrete examples of application of this technique will be presented . The partners will participate to a workshop with the Green Building Alliance and the Oslo School Administration.

The last Steering Committee and the Final Conference of the ID:WOOD Project will be held on the 6th November  2014 in Ljubljana. The final events will be preceded by an international conference “Bridges between design and management" that will take place in Ljubljana on November 5.

For more information and for the event agenda visit www.idwood.eu

Two new ID:WOOD Thematic Dossier intended to support institutions and companies in the wood sector have been recently published. Responding to specific requests from the Partnership, the series of five Dossier is one of the transnational knowledge transfer activities implemented by the project ID:WOOD. After the first issue dedicated to the Furniture sector, edited by Informest and technical partner CATAS, the two new dossiers are dedicated to SAWMILL, edited by the Biotehniška fakulteta - University of Ljubljana, and CLUSTERING edited by Polo Tecnologico di Pordenone . Two additional issues dedicated to Construction material  and SME support will be published soon. The Thematic dossiers SAWMILL and CLUSTERING are available for download at the links :

http://idwood.eu/images/docs/wp5/act_5_1/IDWOOD_Thematic_Dossier-_SAWMILL.pdf

http://idwood.eu/images/docs/wp5/act_5_1/IDWOOD_Thematic_Dossier_3-CLUSTERING.pdf

The first out of five Thematic dossier intended to support institutions and companies in the wood sector has been recently published. The Dossiers are part of the ID:WOOD transnational knowledge transfer activities and respond to specific requests from the partnership. The first issue edited by Informest and its technical partner CATAS has been dedicated to Furniture, while the other numbers will address topics related  to Construction material, Sawmill, Clustering and SME support and will be produced  by the international experts involved in the project. The Thematic Dossier on  Furniture is available for download at the link: http://www.idwood.eu/images/docs/wp5/act_5_1/Idwood_project_Thematic_Dossier__Furniture_Industry_2014.pdf

Pleasant reading!

The kick off meeting of the project RENEW SCHOOL was held in Graz, Austria. The main objective of the project, funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe program, is to promote hi energy performance school buildings retrofit using prefabricated insulated timber modules. Although this technique is spreading mainly in the countries of Central and Northern Europe where the tradition of using wood is larger, it can actually be used in all climatic zones in Europe. The advantages of this technique are: the use of eco-friendly materials, speed of completion, the non-invasiveness of the interventions in the inner parts of the buildings, the possibility of integrating within the modular facade the ventilation systems and renewable energy sources, the certainty of costs.

It has been published the second newsletter of the project MOTOR “Mobile Tourist Incubator”, financed by the Italy – Slovenia Programme 2007 – 2013 and where Informest participates at the project with the area of the Julian Prealps Natural Park. The document, written both in Italian and Slovenian language, briefly describes the project, its aims and results achieved in 2013. A year of huge work , with the implementation of many activities aimed at boosting the networking among operators, as the organization of several training workshops, advisory activities of the center of excellence in the field of tourism , the creation of guidelines for the development of local and incubator and the participation to a study trip to discover best practices and promote the exchange of experiences among tour operators .

KEPASS, the European project of school mobility for secondary schools defined the list of schools that will host the students of different nationalities between the two sides of the Adriatic. Of the eleven regional schools who have asked to be accredited under the program, five were selected to become part of the next final stages of the project.

On 28th June 2013, the European Council endorsed the conclusions and recommendations of the EU-Council of 25th June 2013 and decided to start accession negotiations with Serbia. The first intergovernmental conference will take place at the latest in January 2014. At the same time it was also authorized the opening of negotiations on a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) between EU and Kosovo

In the aftermath of celebrations for the accession of Croatia in the EU, Informest sums up the important analysis developed within the project "ITHREU, Italy and Croatia, a partnership for Europe", the results of which were presented Novigrad June 29, coinciding with the celebrations for the European entry. ITHREU offered a sort of ferry between the European past programming, and the new to be defined: a tool to align with the development of Community policies, through a rich program of institutional, higher education, recognition of the territory.

In the frame of the MOTOR project, on 25th June 2013 started addressed to the tourist operators of Julian Prealps Natural Park area and to whole mountain operators, promoted by Informest with the support of Friuli Venezia Giulia Tourism and the Natural Park.
The themes which will be deal are:  tourist reception, promotion strategies and sale techniques, customer loyalty techniques and identification of tourist packages.

It has been published the first newsletter of the project MOTOR “Mobile Tourist Incubator”, financed by the Italy – Slovenia Programme 2007 – 2013 and where Informest participates at the project with the area of the Julian Prealps Natural Park. The document, written both in Italian and Slovenian language, briefly describes the project, its aims and results achieved.

Hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of Udine, last December 2012 was held in the North-Eastern Italian city a meeting during which was presented a study focusing on the Friuli Venezia Giulia port system and the integrated development of regional logistics carried out by the OCDE Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Local Development Office/LEED in Trento, and commissioned by the same local Chamber of Udine.

The study highlights the opportunities given by the advantages of the North-East Italian Region, its geographical positioning at the interconnection of the Mediterranean basin and the Central Eastern Europe area, being the crossing point of traffic flows and priority TEN-T European corridors (Mediterranean Corridor (former Corridor 5) and Adriatic-Baltic Corridor), the presence of various (road and intermodal) logistics centres (for handling and storage) with good level of services offered, and the Port of Trieste specificity that that represents an international logistics hub and a port gateway on the Adriatic.

In the framework of the project “ITHREU, Italy- Croatia: a partnership  for Europe”, co-financed by Ministry of Economic Development through Law 84/2001, Informest in collaboration with Finest, Croatian Chamber of Economy and Croatian Ministry of Economy, is organizing the participation of Italian and Croatian companies to International Exhibition AGROMALIM in Romania that will be held from 6^th to 9^th September 2012. 

Informest and the other AsviLoc plus partners have outlined a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) describing the common vision to create a European innovation environment, including suggestions and recommendations addressed to the European Policies Makers in charge of shaping cohesion policy for the period 2013-2020. 

Particularly, the RDAs within the Memorandum of Understanding start from the Innovation Union as a "flagship" in the Europe 2020 Strategy: a comprehensive innovation strategy agreed by Member States in June 2010 and which builds on the progress made under the Lisbon Strategy

The Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) involved in the AsviLoc plus project have contributed to set up a transnational innovation system aimed to capitalize RDAs experiences as added value for innovation policies development and start up a lasting coordination mechanism.

Partnership has cooperated in the definition of a RDAs Innovation Action Plan 2020, a transnational innovation system based on several aspects (regional aspects, aspects of innovation per se, etc).

In Friuli Venezia Giulia Asviloc Plus pilot action has aimed at supporting the promotion and the internationalization of the innovation sector related to the social inclusion and health. A catalogue has been produced by Informest and the local Health Authority n. 5 “Bassa Friulana”, providing an overview on regional projects and services implemented by the actors of the Regional Laboratory on Accessibility, Domotics and Innovation. 

The transnational event and the final conference of ASVILOC plus, a project financed under the South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme, will be held in Wien on 21 and 22 june. 

The transnational  conference which will be held the 21^st of June  aims at disseminating innovative actions to support SMEs and in the innovation governance, implemented within the involved Regions in the framework of AsviLoc plus projects.

The "Guida alle PMI del Montenegro" has been put online. The study, presented at an event organised by the Chamber of Commerce of Trieste on May 11, is the output of the Axis II - Internationalisation - Development of economic relations between Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and Montenegro of the ADRIA 3 Project - Strenghtening and development of the cooperation with Eastern Adriatic countries. The document is freely downloadable from the project site www.adria3.eu/documenti.asp after the registration.

In cooperation with the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Croatian National Association of small and Family Hotels, Informest organizes a delegation of 30 Italian companies to the international fair CROTOUR, in Zagreb, Croatia. The mission will be held in May, 9 – 10, 2012. The mission is an activity of ACOST – Coordinated Actions for Tourism Development, a project funded by the Italian Ministry of  Economic Development 

At the end of the first phase of the Project FIT4SMEs (www.fit4smes.net), managed by Informest and co-financed by the Autonomous Region Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Central European Initiative, a questionnaire was addressed to the economic organizations involved in the project with the aim to better identify their level of knowledge and experience, with respect to the possibilities of access to financial resources made ??available to SMEs in the eastern European countries by major international financial organizations (World Bank, EBRD, EIB). Here are the results of the questionnaire.

After joining in 2004, the Central European countries have been neglected in part, in terms of control and verification of the consolidation of the preconditions both for the first of the three Copenhagen criteria, the so-called political criterion, and the third criterion concerning the capacity to fulfill the obligations of membership also in terms of policies. Countries were considered mature and functioning democracies when it is only the Czech Republic. The democratic "crisis" that has developed Hungary during 2011 stems in part from cultural and identity issues that are still open but is also composed of dynamics affecting also other NMSs which have been neglected.

EUROSTAT data for the unemployment in the EU-27 denote a general increase of the index, both in terms of population groups and territories, as a direct consequence of the economic crisis. Thus, the decreasing dynamics started in 2003 was halted. The jobless rate reached in 2010 9.6 percent, increasing by 0.7 points, as a worsening of both the youth and the long-term unemployment rates. At national level, most countries have deteriorated their state, excepting for Austria and Netherlands. The top negative levels are in Spain, Estonia and Lithuania, with ten countries that presented a rate greater than the EU-27 range. Even larger appear the differentiations between the EU regions, varying from the 2.7 pc in the Zeeland and in the Bolzano province to the 23 percent’ exceeding indexes in some Spanish regions and French arrondissements. 

A systemic crisis in the euro area would have serious repercussions on a global level, deepening the cycle started in 2008-2009. But the consequences for the new member states from central and eastern and south-eastern Europe and the candidate countries of the latter area would be even more dramatic, given the strong economic and financial integration with euro-area.

The European Commission has presented on October 19 the draft of the plan "Connecting Europe Facility" for the development of European infrastructure networks until 2030. The EU plan, which also affects the energy and the digital networks future, has redrawn the European TEN-T transport infrastructure created since the '90s.

As for the North-East of Italy, are confirmed the horizontal line of transport (formerly Corridor 5) and the Brenner, while the new decision of interest for the North-East Italian area is given by the institution of the new Baltic-Adriatic corridor.

For the Chinese economy the 2012 could be a critical year for more risk’s factors could compound: 1) excessive dependency from a stagnating global demand but also unstable change (see the euro area and United States); 2) publics investments who are revealing themselves expensive and inefficient; 3) a banking system exposed towards indebted local governments from which 23% of these loans could turn out uncollectable; 4) the widening of income differentials and opportunities and the resulting increase in social unrest. On the long period looms the population aging as the speed of the demographic transition will hinder the creation of universal welfare systems: the shift from savings to consumption could turn out smaller than expected and the market of domestic consumers less wide than hoped. It will be up to the " fifth generation " of political leaders to allow the transition towards a model of sustainable development for China.

The transnational conference “Conversion of military brownfields: processes and perspectives” of the project “F.A.T.E. - From Army To Entrepreneruship” will be held on 19th October in Trieste, Magazzino 26 Porto Vecchio.

The conference is the final event of FATE project, whose aims have been to provide local and regional administrations with useful tools for managing, planning and starting up the requalification processes of military brownfields and to promote the economic potentials thanks to the conversion of these sites into business support centres.

INFORMEST, as partner of the Consortium AREA for scientific and technological research of Trieste, has been shortlisted to a restricted tender procedure for a project aimed at developing the institutional capacity of the three centers of innovation and research in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The consortium shall identify three key international experts to carry out, in case of award of the contract, the project activities: 1 team leader, 1 innovation centre advisor and 1 research and innovation policy advisor.

The Country Surveys study aims to define a comprehensive framework of the main international financial instruments offered to national SMEs operating in East European transition country markets. The financial aspect assumes a specific relevance due to the particular economic conjuncture framework, whereas a global crisis hardly impacted on East European economic systems in a middle of a radical transition phases bringing them towards tough changes and gradual adaptation to fully market economy.

A general overview on the principles and the implementation procedures of the European Union policy about state aids is necessary to know how this policy affects all the actors of the European Union development and not only the enterprises. In the framework of the European competition policy the application of the state aids are aimed to protect the trade freedom and to improve the use of public resources. The consciousness about the procedures of the European policy implementation is essential to underline the benefits and to not suffer it as a operative limitation, in order to enable the public authorities to use it as a referring framework for the policies that provide incentives to the growth.

Next Thursday May 19th in Lubiana, at the presence of the Ministry of Economy of Slovenia, Darja Radic, and of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, Paolo Romani, will be held the Itay-Slovenia Economic Forum, organized by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, the Region Lombardia, the National Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE) and by Promos, agency of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, in collaboration with a number of institutional partners from Slovenia.

The event will be participated also by Informest and Finest, agencies for economic development and international cooperation from North-East Italy, and two banks: Unicredit Slovenia and Intesa San Paolo – Banca Koper. At the end of the Forum, will be organized Business to Business meetings between Italian and Slovene companies, in the sectors: ICT, renewable energy, environment, building and construction.

For information, please call the organizing secretariat at Promos Milano, te. +39-0285155203.

The global processes that are changing the geo-economic balance will impact also the Northeast. A defensive response risks to weaken the competitive regional advantages and to jeopardize EU achievements weakening EU internationally. Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia should form trans-regional partnerships to strengthen productive chains and bring back to EU "lost" part of the global supply chains, in the meantime as well as areas that also supporting EU areas that the transfer of the '14-'21 budget cycle could penalized. This strategy seems useful given that the Northeast is more exposed than Central and Northern Europe to the global processes.

Since the beginning of 2010 is operating the New Free Economic Zone of Balti, in Northern Moldova. It is   the seventh off-shore reality in the country since the adoption of the Law on FZ in July 2001. The Zone, comprising a first already active area and a second broader space under preparation, totaling 12 hectares, is located in a prominent position, benefiting from ongoing economic development of the Balti district and of the relationship with the neighboring areas of Romania and Ukraine. The first active investor was a German industrial society operating in the automotive, which are now added four other joint ventures.

The end of divisions in Europe had an outburst as a direct result of sudden passengers and trade flows along the roads and railway East-West axis. This has led to a significant burden on the existing transport infrastructures, particularly in the South-Eastern Europe, whose network was less developed. With the support of the European Union was launched a regional infrastructure development plan, based on National Master Plans, with intention to contribute at the same to time the "physical" integration into EU of these countries, until the planned policy accession in the incoming years.
The increasing flow of vehicles (passenger cars and commercial vehicles) on the main roads also imply the need to ensure higher levels of risk control and security, which otherwise are likely to weigh heavily on the social and economic development. This should happen within a transnational cooperation framework as a natural consequence of the integration process and of the increasing interdependence that points to the creation of a single space, eliminating the still strong tendencies towards fragmentation and individual approach to problems.