Start and break slide Kick-Off-Meeting April 1 st – 3 rd 2009 Large Conference Hall of Hotel Riga Riga/ Latvia host: Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013

Kick-Off-MeetingApril 1st – 3rd 2009

Large Conference Hall of Hotel Riga

Riga/ Latvia

host:

Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 project

“Baltic Challenges and Chances for local and

regional development generated by Climate Change“

BalticClimate

April 1st 2009 • Dennis Ehm, ARL 2

Kick-Off-Meeting, April 1st – 3rd 2009, Riga

„BalticClimate – the project“

„BalticClimate – the project“

Dennis Ehm, ARL



„BalticClimate project“

What is a „project“?

• unique and complex for identified problem(s)/ task(s)

• requires unique structures: e.g. set of actors, work flow, resources, responsibilities, etc.

• mostly: specific aim, to be fit into fixed frame/settings

unpredictable process shall be “planned”[= contradiction of terms! (oxymonon)]




The co-funding EU programme

“Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013”

• a mainstream Structural Funds programme for the Baltic Sea Region (Objective 3 programme on Territorial Cooperation)

• built on two preceding Community Initiative programmes (Baltic Sea INTERREG IIC & III B NP)

• addresses issues that call for intervention at transnational level




Programme background and aims

• incorporates aspects of •socio-economic competitiveness (Lisbon), •sustainable management of the natural resources (Gothenburg)

•the “EU Territorial Agenda”

• aims to involve several pan-Baltic networks(= projects) for better policies towards

•integrated development of the Baltic Sea region

•its better identity in Europe




Eligible programme area

• EU Member States: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Germany (northern parts)

• Norway

• Russia (north-west regions)

• Belarus




Financing of the programme

Co-Financing

• 208 MEUR from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

• 22.6 MEUR from European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI; for Russia not enabled!)

• 6 MEUR from Norwegian national funding

Total = 236,6 MEUR

Plus project partners‘ contribution (10-50%)!




Strategic objectives = PRIORITIES (projects select from)

1. Fostering innovations

2. External and internal accessibility

3. Baltic Sea as a common resource

4. Attractive and competitive cities and regions

To strengthen the developmenttowards a sustainable,

competitiveand territorially integrated

Baltic Sea Region by connecting potentials

over the borders




Project initiation and history

• Project idea from Central Finland+

• Project idea by ARL

• using experiences made in previous projects

• basing on draft programme documents

• further improved on final programme documents




Project preparation

• First individual project ideas (since May 2007), presented at the Partner Search Forum in Turku (September 2007)

• From competitors to partners: RCCF and ARL (Nov. 2007)• Joint process of integrating more interested institutions• Preparatory meeting 1: Riga!

(March 2008, 16 institutions from 7 countries)• Appointment of Work Package Leaders and common drafting

of the project structure and application form• Preparatory meeting 2a + 2 b: Norrköping + Stockholm

(April 2008, 7 institutions from 2 countries)

Application (May 30th 2008)




Approval process

• 110 project applications (7000 sheets) with a total budget of 374 m€ (!) and 1637 project partners!

• Assessment by the Joint Technical Secretariat (JTS)(until September 2008):• per project 14 quality assessment criteria in 6 categories• grouping of the projects in 4 quality groups

• Monitoring Committee• 3 members of each of the 11 programme countries• decision: October 24th 2008




Approval decision

• Only 24 of 110 applications approved (22%)!

16 % approved




Contracting

• contracting phase (October 25th 2008 – January 24th 2009)• request for clarifications (until January 20th 2009)

(6 + 3 further questions = partly changes in the project setup)• Grant Contract issued and offered (January 28th 2009);

project data form (= updated application form) as annex• signed by the Investitionsbank Schleswig-Holstein (Managing

Authority of the programme) and the ARL (Lead Partner) (February 5th 2009)

legal base for the project

project data form = “bible”




Partnership

• 23 (25) Project Partners (financially involved, may directly receive ERDF co-financing)

• 7 (8) countries: • Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden• Variety in fields of action: local (7), regional (10) and

national (2) level administration/ development, scientific (5) and international (1) organisations

• 16 (13-14) Associated Organisations (Letter of Support)(incl. Russia)

• 7 Target Areas (pilot implementation) in 7 countries (incl. Russia)




map




Project BUDGET

• 4,22 m€ [4,44m€] total budget• 3,34 m€ ERDF (79%)• 0,88 m€ [0,91 m€] own contribution (Project Partners) (21 %)• [0,22 m€ ENPI budget for Russia approved but not enabled!]




Project Phases

May 31st 2007 May 30th 2008 Oct 24th 2008

Oct 24th 2008 Jan 25th 2009 Jan 24th 2012 Apr 24th 2012

(graphic: programme manual 2.0: p. 97, amended)




Motivation/ addressed problem

“Climate change: from global challenge to local chances and actions”

• complex problem/ challenge (mitigation; adaptation)• cross-sectoral and integrated local actions required• few experience and processes existing on how to deal

with the issue• low usability of data, impact and vulnerability

information on regional/ local level by decision makers• climate change seen rather as hindrance for development• chances from climate change, requirement to prepare for

changes and adaptation not seen




Project Objective

• Enable municipalities and local actors to deal with the climate change issue in an integrative and sustainable way

• Making climate change to be understood as challenge and as chance for local and regional sustainable development

• Making BSR municipalities and regions more competitive for future challenges to maintain and enhance the common existing BSR identity




Methodology

•Integrated approach

•Urban-rural cooperation

•Transnational value

•Apply and testing existing and creating of new “tools”

•Scientific assistance




Target Groups

First: Local (regional) decision makers, planners and actors

(public, private, citizens)

Secondary:

National political and administrative institutions (by supporting decisions and measure preparation with local/ regional solutions and experiences)

Transnational and pan-Baltic organisations/ associations (by support of common decisions and measure preparation with local/ regional solutions and experiences in different countries)




Adressed Priority from the BSR Programme

Programme Objective

Priority 1Objective

Priority 2Objective

Priority 3Objective

Priority 4:Attractive

&competitivecities and

regions




Work Packages and their Leaders

• (WP 0 “Preparation”)WP 1 “Management and Administration”

• WP 2 “Communication and Information”

• WP 3 “Climate change material and analyses”

• WP 4 “Integrated Solutions and Capitalisation of Climate Change”

• WP 5 “Climate Change BSR local and regional applying ICT Toolkit”




Assessment of BalticClimate

Assessment Report, score per assessment category:(Scoring system: 1 – unacceptable; 2 – poor; 3 – acceptable; 4 – good; 5 – very good)

Relevance 4 good

Coherence and Quality 3 acceptable

Durability, transferability, dissemination 3 acceptable

Partnership 4 good

Management 4 good

Budget 3 acceptable

“the project has quality enough to be approved” (Allocated to best quality group: among top 15 of 110 projects!) project approved by MC without conditions!




Assessment report

• “The main strong feature of Baltic Climate proposal (also comparing to other proposals dealing with the same topic in this call) is visible commitment of regional and local administration involved as financial partners. Additionally, the project well utilises the possibility to generate new business opportunities as a responses to climate change.

• The weakest is high level of external expertise planned in the project what may significantly influence project’s ability to build capacity in involved organisations.“




Meetings and Events

Meetings:• min. 6 Work Package Leader Meetings (ca. 1 day)• 6 SteeringTEAM meetings (bi-annual, ca. 2 days)

Events• 4 Transnational Seminars (TS)• (Target Area specific) local and regional Workshops

(locWS; regWS)




...some specific definitions

• Project Partner (PP)• Associated Organisation (AO)• Target Area (TA)• Work Package (WP)• common and priority specific Results• Outputs• Indicators• etc...

…we must apply the terms with identical meaning

project manual incl. glossary to be developed




clue for success: TEAM-work

• different actors from different countries with different experiences, different priorities of knowledge, different fields of action and different background

• are being open for the ideas of others,• implement joint work,• have much communication and coordination,• make much new experiences and new knowledge gaining

= achieve common and innovative outcomes

sounds like much work and fun!….let’s start!

Kick-Off-MeetingApril 1st – 3rd 2009

Large Conference Hall of Hotel Riga

Riga/ Latvia

host:

Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 project

“Baltic Challenges and Chances for local and

regional development generated by Climate Change“

BalticClimate

Documents

Start and break slide Kick-Off-Meeting April 1 st – 3 rd 2009 Large Conference Hall of Hotel Riga Riga/ Latvia host: Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013