The 5th Project Meeting and Steering Committee Meeting of the e-smartec Project were held online on July 1 and 2, 2021. The event, who saw the participation of all Project Partners, was hosted by e-smartec’s Project Partner Žilinská univerzita v Žiline.
The meeting started with a welcome from Professor Tatiana Kováčiková (TK) on behalf of UNIZA, who gave a short presentation on the history of the partner’s organization, including information on the academic capacity and achievements of the University. Project Coordinator Maria Morfoulaki followed with an overview on the status of the project, indicating its ongoing activities, deliverables, and pending milestones.
As of what pertains Task 1.3, “Capacity building for effective marketing approach in mobility planning”, Lazio Region’s Partners presented some highlights from the regional hands-on trainings which took place in the first half of 2021.
Regarding Task 1.4, “Action Plan (AP) definition and preparation”, CUE moderated the regional updates, highlighting pending activities (such as the 2nd plenary stakeholder meetings):
- Region of Central Macedonia is at a good stage of AP formulation, and is considering to plan the 2nd plenary meeting in September 2021. The AP will address low participation and little interaction/cooperation amongst neighbouring Municipalities.
- West Midlands Region has currently problems related to Brexit and the funding of the projects. In addition, the focus of the AP has changed and become wider, also relating to micromobility and active mobility and not only cycling.
- Lazio Region has finalised its citizens’ event, indicating that the survey is already online and the results will be analysed in July. Its AP will focus on cycling (“Cycling Action Plan”) with the aim of raising awareness on sustainable mobility and in bicycle projects in the territory.
- Bratislava Region is finalising the results of its citizens’ survey. The 2nd plenary stakeholder meeting will accommodate a discussion on the first draft of the Action Plan. The AP will focus on the increase of the attractiveness and efficiency of public passenger transport.
- Venlo Region's Action Plan will focus on increasing the capacity of all stakeholders involved in SUMP planning in the region, as well as promoting remote working and digital mapping tools for involving citizens in the SUMP decisions.
- Hessen Region’s 2nd plenary stakeholder meeting has already taken place, but partner HTAI/CC-SUM is also thinking to plan another meeting in autumn 2021. Hessen has decided to change the policy instrument: it will now have a clear focus on integrating mobility planning and the role of participation.
Regarding Task 1.5, “Monitoring of the APs”, Partner UNIZA stressed out that the Task activities are strongly interlinked with all the other Tasks and mentioned that a key challenge of monitoring of APs implementation is also to ensure the “exploitation of APs in regional policy instruments”.
Regarding Task 1.6, “Transferability analysis”, CERTH reminded partners on the 2 dimensions for the transferability process:
- the enlargement of the transferring tips of regional e-smartec GPs (previous material will be fully exploited, further input will be required to authors’ GPs) – PART A
- the transferring potentials of the methods identified within the GPs – PART B
The combination of Parts A and B will be the input in a multi-criteria analysis tool (Visual PROMETHEE software).
As of Task 2.2, “Advanced communication and dissemination actions”, Partner POLIS presented analytics from the website and social media, as well as the additional activities that have been agreed within the JS, POLIS and CERTH. These are:
- the e-course: based on the hands-on trainings and the relevant material, the e-course will aim at introducing the use of marketing and engagement techniques for SUMPs to a wider audience.
- POLIS webinars: these will be introduced in Zoom (through POLIS account) and take place during autumn/winter 2021. One webinar will be related to the e-course launch.
The project e-smartec will also participate to the European Week of Regions and Cities and the POLIS Conference.
Finally, discussions on the Project Management and Steering Committee actions were further taken into consideration before concluding the two days of work.
Read the press release for more info.