On 7th December 2018, the Metropolitan City of Turin has organised a meeting with the stakeholders of the project. The meeting started with a presentation of the FFWD Europe Project updates to the stakeholders who already have been kept updated on the project evolution, but was mainly conceived to present to them the system of the good practices and the staff exchange opportunities.
The good practices presented were those submitted by the FFWD Europe partners who have been already approved by the Interreg Europe Programme, with reference to the internal working document “Synthesis Good Practices FFWD Europe” shared by the project partners.
We have distributed to all the stakeholders a synthesis document of all the good practices submitted for FFWD Europe, outlining those who were already approved. We have also distributed them a form to fill out, where the stakeholders were asked to express their preferences for the staff exchange. Generally, the stakeholders noted that many of the presented practices were related to categories (Acceleration models, Access to funding, Internationalisation of SMEs) that for them had a different meanings: in example the category “Acceleration models” contains also start up programmes, while for the Italian stakeholders acceleration is intended as a different phase from the start up.
For all the practices presented, the stakeholders would like to have more information on how the used funds come from (especially for investments): are they public or private funds? which level of public funding (european, national, regional, local). Also they would like to have more information on the involved partners. These questions come by a reflection on the funds: the problem in Italy with the acceleration is the lack of funding, in fact at the start and in the acceleration phase the funds are very needed and at local level there are very little opportunities. There are some funds at national level but the competition is very hard as the demand is far more big than the funding capacity.
Following these questions, and starting from the Norman Funding Entities practice, the stakeholders discussed the existence of public equity funds in Italy, noticing how in Italy there are similar public funds managed at national level by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and a multiregional (Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto) fund. The French experience has been considered interesting for the intervention on small, start-ups and SMEs.
In general, the stakeholders expressed their preferences of interest for the long lasting and structured programs, as they think that these are practices from which you can get more food for thought to bring the positive elements in Italian practices and policies. One of the more interesting practice for the stakeholders is surely the French FFWD.
The stakeholders were invited to fill in the preference form to check which are the practices they wish to see during the staff exchange. They also underlined how it would be more effective to do the staff exchange together with a representative of the Metropolitan City of Turin.
The Metropolitan City of Turin also discussed the Innometro project: at the moment it is an idea for an instrument managed by the CMTO intrended for the micro enterprises for innovation. About this it could be interesting to check the Loan for 0% polish practice.
The meeting ended with the CMTO underlining how the FFWD Europe will provide for the organisation of the staff exchange, asking the stakeholders to submit their questions on the good practices and their staff exchange preferences in short time.
