10th-13th October 2011 | Brussels (Belgium)
Under the theme “Investing in Europe’s future: Regions and cities delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”, the 9th Open Days will be held over four days from 10 to 13 October, in a period during which the debate on the European Commission’s legislative proposals for cohesion policy post-2013 and the budget debate in the Council and the European Parliament about size, duration and priorities of the forthcoming Multi-annual Financial Framework will dominate the political agenda.
Conceived and developed by the EU Committee of the Regions and the European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, the Open Days 2011 consist of about 100 sessions – workshops and debates – exhibitions and networking opportunities for the about 6,000 participants.
The Open Days 2011 will be structured around three thematic priorities:
- “Europe 2020”. How Cohesion Policy contributes to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. This thematic priority includes issues such as; research and innovation; “Digital Europe”; creative industries; regional and urban low-carbon development strategies; energy efficiency; cooperation on climate action; regional and local employment strategies; tackling poverty and social exclusion.
- “Better delivery”. Under this thematic priority, workshops and debates focus on how to improve delivery of Cohesion Policy in the current period, but also after 2013. Exchange of good practice between practitioners are mixed with discussions on certain aspects or novelties of the regulatory framework post-2013 proposed by the Commission. Seminars could focus on sub-themes like “moving from grants to loans”, “more focus on results”, on-going evaluation, new evaluation methods, the right balance between concentration and flexibility, how to ensure visibility of EU’s Regional policy through results and projects, Common Strategic Frameworks and Partnership contracts etc.;
- “Geography matters”. Under this thematic priority discussions focus on highlighting the usefulness of territorial approaches when identifying regional needs and exploiting regional potentials. Experiences and specific solutions in the fields of e.g. urban and local development, territorial co-operation and the European Grouping on Territorial Co-operation (EGTC), macro-regional strategies, regions with specific geographical/demographic challenges etc. could be exchanged.
Several events will deal with issues such as Structural Funds and disadvantaged groups, including Roma. Specifically, the ‘ROMA-Net’ project, which addresses the social inclusion of the Roma people in cities In particular, will be presented in one of the workshops.
About the Open Days
Held since 2003, the Open Days have become an annual key event at which cities and regions showcase their capacity for creating growth and jobs, implementing European Union cohesion policy, and prove the importance of the local level for good European governance. Conceived and developed by the EU Committee of the Regions and the European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, this communication and networking platform regularly enlists loyal support from thousands of local, regional, national and European decision-makers and experts, whose achievements have been manifold in the areas of economic success and social integration, co-operation between regions, fruitful public-private partnerships at local level, and with research centres and universities.
Further information
Further details are available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/od2011/index.cfm?nmenu=1⊂=100
Some of the workshops will be webstreamed on the Open Days website: http://www.opendays.europa.eu
