The Cork Institute of Technology benefited from a site visit from Public Institution for the Regional Development of the Varazdin County (JURA) from Croatia. JURA participated in a study trip to Cork from the 1st to the 5th of October 2018. Five representatives of JURA made the trip to Cork, including Ivana Prikratki, Ivana Klinec Tkalec and Andrea Bubnjaric Project Management; Maja Lehman and Sanja Sokol, Regional Development.
The main areas of interest for JURA are in regional development, cultural and natural heritage, education and various extra-curricular programmes as well as entrepreneurship. The visit provided an opportunity for the group to connect with the Southern Regional Assembly, Cork County Council, Waterford City and County Council and the Cork Institute of Technology.
In CIT the visiting delegation met with the V-LINC research group to share their experiences, including the ecoRIS3 project, transnational partnerships and regional development projects. The group also had meetings in CIT with Helen McGuirk, Head, Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence, CIT and Gerard O’Donovan, Head of Faculty of Business and Humanities CIT.
Dr John Hobbs, was delighted with the opportunity to share experiences and exchange knowledge. He believes “it was interesting to hear the perspectives on Smart Specialisation Strategy implementation in Varazdin County, Croatia and how that parallels with the Irish experiences. Whilst also raising awareness of the Good Practices developed on the ecoRIS3 project and their applicability in Varazdin. There are opportunities to include Varazdin County in the workshops and seminars of the ecoRIS3 project in the future.”
Image: Maja Lehman, Ivana Prikratki, Dr John Hobbs (CIT), Sanja Sokol, Ivana Klinec Tkalec, Andrea Bubnjaric from JURA visiting the Cork Institute of Technology on the 4-10-2018.
Ivana Prikratki, Project Management, suggests that the visit to Cork was “exiting because, it enabled us to learn about different approaches and innovative solutions to the challenges that are common to our both regions. It was fascinating to see the wide variety of cutting-edge good practice solutions and the great results of these solutions.”
