On 14th -15th of February, the iEER met in Szczecin to review how each region has progressed in the implementation of their action plans and gathered inputs for future policy recommendation. While most of regions have been able to implement the actions according to the plans, some had to derive due to change brought by the politican reform or condition. 
iEER action plans were laucnhed in March 2018. They account to a total of 50 actions that would implement the good practices and lessons learned from the iEER regions. At the meeting, the Helsinki-Uusimaa, West Region Romania Brandeburg, Valencia, West Pomerania and Marche reported the progess in achieving policy impacts on the addressed structure fund.
Among these actions, the pilot actions: train the trainers based on the good practice Aula Emprende are nine of those action carried out in regions. The pilot action was kicked off by the trainer’s camp in last autumn in Valencia where the University of Valencia and the Regional Government Valencia introduced the pedagogical tools.
At the meeting, most of regions have reported that the training day introducing the methods to the professors and researchers has been carried out. Following that, the regions and the actors involved will continue to test out the method in the classroom developing new business projects through seminars. Concrete plans such as Helsinki-Uusimaa integrating it to the existing “10 Days 100 Challenges” and Hauts de France continued to organise 3 workshops to test and accesses aula Emprende have been revealed.
In addition to monitoring the progress, partners also discussed about challenges in implementing the action plans which were not foreseen at the first place. Most of them is attributed to the uncertainty of the political scene in the region brought by the change of government or Brexit in the case of Northern Ireland.
After the monitoring meeting, the iEER high levels commenced to ponder over the results and prepare for the work of the iEER policy recommendation.
“Startup and business creation is growth opportunity for the WestPomerania and I am really pleased that we are able to learn and work with the iEER regions to develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem in West Pomerania, and most important, establishing long standing friendship with the iEER regions, such as Helsinki-Uusimaa and Brandenburg” commented by Olgierd Geblewicz, Marsh of West Pomerania, at the high-level meeting.
At the high level meeting, Piotr Zajaczkowski, Policy Officer and EER Coordinator at the European Committee of the Regions introduced the future work of Committee of the regions and the EER scheme. He also encouraged the iEER regions to bring forward its policy recommendation to the CoR and contrbute to the opinions on the SMEs and startup policies in the future.
The 14th of February was a Valentine’s day. But this year, for the iEER partners, it is a startup and friendship day accompanied with roses, friendship and the mission to make our regions attractive for startups.
