What are the key elements of your action plan and why?
Within the five Osiris challenges related to employment, innovation, education, social inclusion and climate/energy and thanks to the experience of the European partners of the project, Fundão's strategic vision materializes in a clear plan to implement an innovative strategy to increase employment, for more and better education, and to ensure social inclusion. This project is very focused on the co-creation process, enabling the Local Action Group (LAG) to create together.
We define in our Action Plan the creation of more and better jobs, attracting and retaining enterprises and investors, attracting new talent and inhabitants, improving living conditions of the elderly and people with reduced mobility, a better quality of life. That's why the title is: ”MAKE FUNDÃO A BETTER CITY”.
How is open social innovation addressed in your action plan?
The design of the Action Plan, in order to be as concrete and focused as possible, was oriented to these 4 key actions: 1) EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES 2) HOUSING SITUATION 3) LOCAL COMMERCE 4) IMPROVE EDUCATION/TRAINING
These actions were the result of the analysis of the questionnaire "QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE CITY OF FUNDÃO", in which the Fundão population participated, making this initiative a social innovation process.
Sharing ideas at subsequent LAG meetings was an opportunity for citizens, organizations and other stakeholders to participate in a co-creative process for the formulation of the action plan, focusing on these key actions.
Another innovative character was a meeting that was held in Drenthe, where a specific co-creation session was held for Fundão on the results of the questionnaire. Dutch stakeholders and Osiris European partners, made a contribution in the definition of some actions of our Plan based on their own experiences.
How do you see the role of the Osiris process in your action plan and what was your most important learnings so far?
Transnational exchange was considered the most valuable part of the process as the ideas and learning generated between the partners are being reflected in each AP throughout the OSIRIS partnership.
Some example of concrete actions, replicated or inspired by the network, with participation of Fundão’s stakeholder, or presented after each LAG meeting, was:
- THE AAL HOUSE in Patras inspired our PILOT PROJECT: IHOME4YOU - SMART HOME FOR SENIORS
- INNOVATION FOR ARTISANS AND CRAFTS from Provice of Drenthe, SLIPERIET at Umeå University inspired our Fundão DESIGN FACTORY;
- OPEN DATA - Trento inspired the actions of DATA BASE for Housing Situation;
- EXPERIENCE LAB from Åbo Akademi University inspired SCHOOL EXPERIENCE LAB - design your future
What parts of the OSIRIS process were easy to implement? And were there parts that were difficult?
The Municipality of Fundão, being the only European partner of the network that represents a city, a municipal territory, proved not to be a disadvantage.
For us, it was easy to involve the LAG. We tried to structure a partnership that would guarantee a comprehensive representation of areas focused on ICT, training and education, the employment centre, the local community, etc. In this group, the main focus is given to the people, who represent the institutions, companies etc. They are the ones that bring all the know-how and knowledge about their entities.
The most difficult was the beginning of the LAG meetings that involved people with different areas of interest from public and private entities. The OSIRIS project itself is vast in terms of its challenges and this led to a misunderstanding of what was intended at first. But, we were fortunate that the international visit in Fundão occurred early in phase 1. During and after this conference, the LAG got a greater participation and interest in the project. No doubt getting to know the European partners and stakeholders was an important milestone.
What are the most important issues you want to develop in the policy instrument?
The most important issues that Fundão wants to give to the PI is to raise employability.
The OSIRIS project assumes a central role, with consequent overflow of its areas to specific actions, and it is safe to say that the Fundão Action Plan will influence 7 of the 10 priority axes, 8 of the 11 thematic objectives, and 13 of the 27 investment priorities, and bring contributions, good practices and experiences developed between the Centro region and other partners of the project.
What are your best tips for developing an action plan?
The best tip that made it much easier for us was the elaboration, after each meeting of the LAG, of creative minutes; documenting, describing and presenting the experiences of international visits, and all the steps to create our Action Plan. Each document was always sent to stakeholders prior to each meeting to recall the information from the previous meeting. These documents also help the elaboration of the Action Plan.
