The meeting took place on the 19th of January (Thursday) in the Stara Zagora City Council hall, Bulgaria. The meeting was attended by 41 local stakeholders, including representatives from the Region of Stara Zagora municipalities, educational institutions, financial institutions and the business in the region. The public consultation meeting was a part in the agenda of another event in Stara Zagora organized in partnership with the World Bank and the Representation of European Commission in Bulgaria. The topic of the whole event is about the Investment plan for Europe and innovation. The decision Public consultation meeting was taken by the SZREDA team because the topic of the public consultation meeting is rellevant to the agenda of the main event.
The meeting began with a presentation about the World Bank and the issues it addresses and the opportunities that Bulgaria and Bulgarian businesses have. After this the executive director of SZREDA Rumyana Grozeva talked about the INNOGROW project, the problems that the project addresses and aims to find solutions for them. Rumyana Grozeva also presented two good case studies of Bulgarian SMEs in rural areas that have adopted innovation and the good results of the practices. The final part of the presentation panel was for mr. George Yanakiev who presented how the European Union has contributed to the development of the business in Bulgaria and compared the results with those of other European countries.
After the presentation panel there was discussion and networking part and the spearkers were available for comments and questions. The main problems that the representatives of the business addressed were the lack of adequacy in some Bulgarian institutions regarding the issue with policies to support the addotpion of innovation in rural SMEs, the large amount of administrative requirements in the participation in some supporting programmes like the National Innovation Fund in Bulgaria and the lack of highly qualified and skilled staff in the rural ares. The SZREDA team answered all the questions that were asked during the meeting and all of the stakeholders participated ensured their support regarding further questions and issues regarding the project and the project activities.
All of the stakeholders participated confirmed their readiness for attending the upcoming stakeholder meeting and to participate in other events and activites regarding the INNOGROW project.
