The Peer review meeting under the IMPROVE project for Gabrovo good practices and current economic situation was hold by Gabrovo Municipality in the period 20 – 21 April 2021. The meeting had around 30 participants in the different sessions and it was taken online because of the Covid 19 situation in Europe. The main purpose of the meeting was representing of good practices in the region regarding the relationships between stakeholders and their efforts to use EU funding as an instrument for growing and creating a sustainable ecosystem of partners who are working for the sustainable economic growth of the region and especially for Gabrovo municipality territory.
The peer review meeting was divided in 3 sessions held in these two days – 1 session was dedicated to statistics, economic profile of the region and showcases from representatives of the stakeholders from the business group. The session began with representing the economic profile of Gabrovo and making a SWOT analysis by Mr. Peter Ganev – expert in the Bulgarian Institute for Market Economy. Good practices and new achievement were presented by the representatives of the Technical university of Gabrovo and the Regional Innovation center.
On 21 April session 2 and 3 were held. The presentations in session 2 were mainly directed to the opportunities for the young people that we can offer and the possibilities for development that they can have in Gabrovo. The partnership between Gabrovo Municipality and the Trakia Economic zone was presented. Later the expert of Gabrovo team made presentations on potential for Public private partnerships and the synergies to boost Innovation ecosystem and the opportunities to finance the economic zones was one of the topics discussed.
As a part of the stakeholders’ ecosystem, representative of the Ministry of economy in Bulgaria explained the national framework and the strategy for smart specialization. A discussion has been formed on the topic of boosting start-ups ecosystem and funding opportunities for young companies.
The last session at the end of the peer review meeting was initiated to address the main challenges identified. Sometime of the day was for representing Gabrovo Integrated Development plan for the period 2021 – 2027 and what are the next steps for cooperating and networking. The peer review ended up with group discussions and reflection from all the partners in this international project.
The IMPROVE project (Improving the management and implementation of Structural Funds for a better delivery of R&D policies and instruments) is funded under the INTERREG Europe Program.
www.interregeurope.eu/improve
