Strategic initiatives

Within its priorities, the North West Europe Programme identified the following themes as particularly interesting for the area: transport and logistics chains; production and consumption of energy from renewable sources; developing capacity for innovation and knowledge based economy; challenges posed by demographic change and immigration and adaptation to the spatial impacts of climate change. To stimulate the development of projects to tackle these issues, the Programme put in place the ‘Strategic Initiatives’ process.

What makes a project (or cluster of projects) ‘strategic’?

Projects applying to be part of a Strategic Initiative will be processed in the usual way, i.e. assessed and scored against the Programme selection criteria. Apart from that, they will need to demonstrate their strategic dimension by presenting high standards regarding:

Relevance to the strategic topic
Transnationality
Strategic impact beyond the lifetime of the INTERREG funding
Integration: a good vertical representation of stakeholders
Originality and innovativeness: It represents a good chance to shape political and scientific discussions

What is in it for projects?

An additional assistance of up to 1% of the project’s total budget (no additional match funding required)
A wide exposure in the Programme’s communication activities
Early and tailored support from the Programme

Ways to develop Strategic Initiatives projects

There are three ways to be part of the Strategic Initiatives:

1) Bottom-up approach
The initiative comes from the project partnership. Specific Terms of References for Strategic Initiatives are published along the regular Programme Calls for proposals. If relevant, projects may request to be considered as ‘Strategic Initiatives’ too. The Terms of Reference for Strategic Initiatives for the 7th Call for proposals will be published by 03/09/2010.

2) Projects proactively commissioned by the Programme (top-down approach)
The initiative comes from the Programme. In this case, a number of topics have been selected for proactive project development. As a first step, the Programme organised project development meetings on 16 and 17 November 2009 with a view to identify a group of relevant stakeholders interested in developing the proposed topics and turn them into concrete project proposals. The project specifications resulting from these meetings can be found below. Following this first step, the interested project promoters organised additional meetings in 2010 and are currently developing the concrete proposals and forming a transnational partnership. At this stage, the aim of all top-down projects is to submit their proposal during Call 7 of the NWE Programme. The process is still open and those interested in joining should contact the NWE Secretariat.

The selected topics are:

North West Europe “Energy Agency” - NWE network of centres. (Download draft project brief)
Biomass Energy Development. (Download draft project brief)
Energy from Algae/Bio-solar-safe: tapping energy from green cells. (Download draft project brief)
Economic cluster development across North West Europe. (Download draft project brief)
North West Europe network of centres co-operating on innovation and technology transfer. (Download draft project brief)
Freight telematics and logistics chains management (including transnational corridors). (Download draft project brief)

3) Cluster development (for NWE approved projects only)
The initiative is shared between the Programme and already approved projects. Clusters of projects can have a ‘strategic’ relevance if they cooperate to maximize their impact and visibility. So far the Programme has identified three potential (not formally approved yet) clusters of approved projects on the following topics:

Innovative approaches to urban, inter-urban and rural public passenger transport (Currently including ICMA, SINTROPHER, ROCK, TRAMSTORE, BAPTS).
Innovative approaches to sustainable energy promotion and management (Currently including REGAIN, LIVINGGREEN, CAP’EM, BLISS).
Adaptation to the expected spatial impacts of climate change (Currently including FORESTCLIM, IMCORE, FUTURE CITIES, WAVE, AMICE,ALFA, FLOODRESILIENCITY, C-CHANGE).

How to cluster?

Projects define together a Joint Action Plan (JAP) including a budget
A ‘Cluster Leader’ is appointed
The Secretariat gives advice on the Joint Action Plan
The cluster submits the Joint Action Plan to the Programme Steering Committee for approval

For further information on Strategic Initiatives please contact the JTS officers Anke Möllers (anke@nweurope.eu) or Michela Marasco (michela@nweurope.eu).