Thank you for joining Umbrella 2.0 Awareness Raising Event!
Over 125 participants joined us on Tuesday, 27th April to learn more about the cooperation possibilities in the Baltic Sea Region! More than 90 participants stayed also for the thematic workshops part and enjoyed the discussion with the experts from all BSR countries. On behalf of Umbrella 2.0 Partnership: Euroregion Baltic, Union of the Baltic Cities and Baltic Sea States Subregional Cooperation, together with Swedish Institute, which is funding our initiative, we would like to thank everyone for your presence, comments and great inputs!
Our event started with a presentation on the Umbrella 2.0 project given by Magda Leszczyna-Rzucidło – Project Coordinator and Head of the International Permanent Secretariat at Euroregion Baltic, which you can also see here:
This part was followed by the presentation of 3 project partners, their organisations and the possibilities they offer to the Baltic Sea region smaller actors and institutions eager to start transnational cooperation.
Finally, Gabor Schneider presented the Swedish Institute offers for the Baltic Sea Region actors, coming from all over the Baltic Sea, but also available to participants from Russia and Ukraine.
The second hour of the webinar part was dedicated to knowledge sharing – Olga Zuin, Programme Coordinator of the CBSS Baltic 2030 Unit presented her great input on Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation measures in the Baltic Sea Region. She mentioned two important reports prepared by the CBSS:
Finally, Sebastian Magier from Vestanda AB, Umbrella 2.0 Expert presented the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region “entry points’ for small and local actors based on 14 interviews with EUSBSR Policy Area Coordinators. The full report will be provided in May and available to all Baltic Sea actors.
The whole webinar part of the Umbrella 2.0 Awareness Raising Event was recorded and is available online here:
After the break, the event continued with the Q&A Session, where experts related to BSR cooperation answered the questions we’ve received from our participant before the event. Q&A session was related to the Baltic Sea Cooperation related to EUSBSR, SDGs and EU Green Deal.
Questions that were taken live: COMING SOON!
Is the EUSBSR action plan updated from time to time? How often? And how does the negotiation work? Can local actors contribute to it? How?
Our expert: Anders Bergström, EUSBSR Policy Area Education Coordinator
2. Who’s in charge of monitoring the SDGs achievements in each country of the Baltic Sea States?
Our expert: Olga Zuin, Programme Coordinator of the CBSS Baltic 2030 Unit
3. How do you think the situation in the tourism sector will change after Covid in the Baltic Sea Region, e.g. how the pandemic affected the way of travelling? Will there be any incentives to prefer “green transports?
Our expert: Andrea Krabbe, EUSBSR Policy Area Tourism Coordinator
4. How to find partners for cooperation activities/ international projects?
Umbrella 2.0 launches its first event to raise awareness on the current “hot topics in the Baltic Sea Region”. Today we hear a lot about sustainability and it may seem a difficult topic, getting lost in EU policies and strategies, or seen as something the “big” are responsible for, like the United Nations and their Sustainable Development Goals. However, every day, many small actors from civil society perform activities that contribute to the achievement of overarching goals. It may seem not relevant, but even the ocean is made by drops.
Umbrella 2.0 would like to invite and inspire local actors from civil society and the public sphere to undertake actions that can contribute to important sustainable goals. We need to go all in the same direction, together. Therefore, we have invited representatives of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, besides NGOs, to get to know each other and discuss together.
Are you curious? Would you like to know how to get engaged and/ or to start a learning process, involving your staff?
Take part in our online event, get inspired by other organizations like yours and let us guide you!
After the Umbrella project’s success (Boosting cross-border cooperation capacities of local actors in the South Baltic Sea), Euroregion Baltic decided to propose a package of activities based on already tested actions to involve newcomers in the Baltic Sea Region. The excellent relationship of Euroregion Baltic with the Umbrella 2.0’s partners (Union of the Baltic Cities and BSSSC) will ensure perfect coverage in the Baltic Sea Region regarding stakeholders’ involvement and boost bottom-up actions.
Bottom-up actors are those closer to the citizens and their needs; they know their territory and are aware of how to apply policies in the best way.
Euroregion Baltic works as a mediator between the local municipalities and other NGOs and the upper strategic levels, meaning the regional, national, international levels besides the EU’s bound thanks to the INTERREG South Baltic Programme and close cooperation with the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. Our project partners have a similar role, being close to their stakeholders and raising awareness on the value of transnational cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region.
The new EU
programming period 2021-2027 is underlying the importance of sustainability, which
is strongly perceived as fundamental, especially in this pandemic.
That’s why Umbrella 2.0 and its partners want to be ambassadors of the EUSBSR, EU Green Deal and UN SDGs, bringing more newcomers and bottom-up actors onboard.
—-
To do so, we
asked ourselves whether the EU is known and well communicated, whether it is
close to those who work at the local level, close to citizens. And we asked
ourselves whether those things that we take for granted because we work with
them daily are clear for others. Often possibilities and opportunities are
often not known. EU strategic choices, long-term goals and action plans are
simply not known. Therefore our mission is:
– To raise awareness of opportunities and benefits of
transnational and cross-border cooperation and increase regional stakeholders’
interest in it;
– To empower stakeholders to build strategic and long
term-partnerships, support networking, and straighten community of
practitioners in different sectors;
– To improve knowledge of the EU, its financial instruments and
relevant strategies, with particular focus on the EUSBSR;
– To explore
the opportunities and benefits of being part of EUSBSR and offer practical
guidelines on how to engage in long-term;
—-
We are project managers and strategists, but we want to pass the concept that the process is more important than the result. First of all, we need to involve local actors in networking, building trust, exchanging knowledge, and setting the basis for actions.
Our goals:
– to raise
awareness through networking events or conferences about EUSBSR Action Plan and
communication, UN SDGs, EU Green Deal. These are the major topics that need to
be investigated by the beneficiaries to make them create a connection between
the upper strategic level and the bottom operative level. The latter is the one
that actually can have a relevant impact on a local level, especially in terms
of sustainable development.
– to make
EUSBSR and local actors meet together, know each other, communicate in 3
two-day “meet-your-flagship” events. Why “meet-your-flagship”?
We believe that the flagships have proved their consolidative role. They offer processes that enable multiple actors from different levels to work together on challenges and opportunities in the chosen area. The most experienced and usually engaged actors represent regional or national authorities and academia. They are aware of the opportunities posed by the flagship processes and often engage in them. Yet, we still rarely see local and rural local entities like municipalities, local socio-economic actors and institutions, and NGOs. Therefore, the aim is to ensure they are as adequately informed as to the others and foresee the same possibilities for their cross-border and transnational cooperation within the EUSBSR and other relevant EU agendas.
– to train
stakeholders on project management. In fact, once actors are involved in
processes and networks, projects are often the most used tool to cooperate
across borders.
– to communicate the EU policies (EU Green Deal, EUSBSR) and UN SDGs through stakeholders’ thematic training.
Who is our target group? Why it’s important to reach out to so-called “newcomers”?
Our project proposal addresses the need to build capacities of small and local actors, mostly “newcomers”, to widen their participation in the Baltic Sea regional cooperation. The need was identified in the “Needs analysis”, conducted in the frame of the Umbrella project in which Euroregion Baltic has been the lead partner of “Umbrella Boosting cross-border cooperation capacities of local actors in the South Baltic Sea” project (www.umbrellaproject.eu). The analysis was based on quantitative and qualitative questionnaires made among the small and medium-sized municipalities, NGOs, local action groups from the 5 South Baltic Sea states. The assessment report “Mapping stakeholders and analysing barriers in the South Baltic Sea” provided information about specific gaps that the SBP should address in future. Recommendations were also provided, including the need to focus on newcomers, small organisations also, for instance, sports associations, associations dealing with social affairs, and schools. Today, these are almost absent as project partners in the current programming period, for several various reasons but most commonly for their lack of capacity. The report points out that “micro-scale” is a relative concept and can vary between regions and sectors of activity. Our definition of newcomers includes actors related to the governance layer that is closer to citizens (local authorities) and horizontal subsidiarity (civil society’s initiatives).
The Umbrella project was launched at the beginning of 2018. It resulted from the realisation that the South Baltic Programme (SBP) was hard to access for small organisations, mainly because of their insufficient institutional and financial capacities. SBP stakeholders in general and small local actors specifically still experience communication barriers, limited English language skills, and lack of competencies and capabilities in project development and implementation. To address these challenges, the Umbrella project committed to developing know-how capacities for small local and regional actors and civil society organisations in the South Baltic Programme area to improve their participation in cross-border cooperation. To achieve this goal, Umbrella implemented a significantly more comprehensive approach, determined by a strategic decision of the partnership to address different levels of capacity building processes – from a single institutional capacity of potential project partner, via micro-activities addressed to the micro organisations till strategic capacity building on the programme macro level where we cooperated with EUSBSR HA Capacity coordinators (our Associated Partner).
The Umbrella project has offered a tailor-made set of solutions and reached the following objectives:
It mapped stakeholders in the South Baltic Region and delivered a report
with an assessment of needs and potential project themes, as well as project
barriers to addressing in the South Baltic Programme and its future programming
period (2021-2027). It invited mapped stakeholders to 2 awareness-raising
events on EU financial possibilities, programmes, cross-border cooperation
networks;
– It organised 3 Cross-border conferences with EUSBSR Policy Area panels
on: Bioeconomy, Energy and electromobility and sustainable tourism;
– It held micro-activities to “meet-your-neighbours”: networking
thematic meetings to initiate cooperation;
– It delivered 12 national trainings in national languages on project
management in Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Lithuania;
– It invited mapped stakeholders to Umbrella’s “Rent-an-Expert”
service to help them learn how to write meaningful project applications;
– It delivered a training and coaching pack on project management: from
ideation to implementation of EU financed projects, including and 1
“train-the-trainers” session;
– All the training materials and stakeholders are collected in the Moodle
platform http://umbrellaproject.eu/moodle/ ;
– The project helped writing more than 5 new projects in SBP, Swedish
Institute and Erasmus +;
– Umbrella will be finalised in December 2020, and it is going to organise
4 Cross-border workshops in the form of focus groups to discuss the upcoming
SBP programming period. It will deliver a “Meet-your-neighbours success
stories” book, and it will end with a final conference;
– No. of local actors involved in cross-border activities: 240
organisations of which:
✔ 90 were involved in
cross-border micro-activities and raising awareness events developing knowledge
capacity about the South Baltic Programme.
✔ 100 were involved in
CBC conference with EUSBSR PA panels and training
✔ 150 were involved in
basic cross-border cooperation level (scouting actions). These are
organisations (newcomers) with a lack of capacity to participate in regular
projects, and relevant bodies involved in SBP implementation (directly and
indirectly) were also collected and presented in the form of on-line platforms.
Umbrella proved to be an optimal mediator among different stakeholders.
Therefore, starting from the presumption that the EUSBSR and the local actors
are entirely detached from the other, the project objective would be to develop
know-how capacities for local organisations in cooperation in the Baltic Sea
Region, harmonising local needs and actions and upper strategic lines.
While the local actors are focused on objectives in their local sphere of influence, the strategy provides guidelines that are not known at the local level. A bridge between local actors and the strategy needs to be set to enhance the interaction among all the governance levels to start a process that can facilitate the implementation of EUSBSR and other sustainable policies matching with the EU Green Deal and SDGs.
Umbrella 2.0 would act to mediate the communication between the strategies and the local level, raising awareness and providing practical knowledge and tools for implementation.
More on the NEWCOMERS – Who are they?
Representatives of small NGOs and municipalities, practitioners, working in those institutions from all sectors who need to build their knowledge, understanding, and skills to work effectively in EUSBSR partnership. Also, they are EUSBSR actors with some experience who wish to complement and formalise their learning with the latest EU/EUSBSR frameworks, innovative and practical tools etc. In Interreg Baltic Sea Region Orientation Paper for 2021-27, they are called the “first-timers” in opposition to the “Usual suspects club”, so those who are well-known project partners, consortium leaders and strategic processes developers. Newcomers constitute a very heterogeneous group of different kinds of organisations (regarding size, strategic orientation, business model, funding streams, target groups, etc.), making it challenging to distinguish, characterise and identify them among EUSBSR cooperation actors. We need them on board in the EUSBSR cooperation, as they neither follow the logic of academia (characterised by excellence in scientific disciplines) nor the logic of typical business actors (shaped by competitiveness and profit). Their modus operandi focuses on solving societal problems (usually, they are mission-driven). They aim to influence the policymaking process, or they are more service-oriented and try to improve the situation of their primary target group.
Dear ERB Water Core Group Members,
Please see the information we’ve received from the Swedish Institute. This year they are organizing another Baltic Leadership Programme (BLP) on Per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). They are very contaminated fluorochemicals, with a significant threat to the drinking water and water systems. Fire foams, all kind of sprays, even takeaway boxes (e.g. pizza packages) or skivaxs often contain PFAS. Municipalities and regions have a tremendous responsibility in the direct implementation/usage of such substance. However, there is deficient awareness of that. I enclose the concept note of BLP on PFAS.
Conditions to apply and participate are similar to previous BLP programmes, only this time only specific target audience has been informed about the programme, including our Water Core Group.
SI BLP programmes enable the formation of expert-networks and provide great experts and knowledge. SI covers all costs of the modules, accommodation, food, etc.. However, SI expect that participants pay their travel to the physical modules.
For full module concept and programme please contact Magda from the IPS: magda.rzucidlo@euroregionbaltic.eu
IMPORTANT: SI they expect all applications form no later than 15 August attached with a CV written in English and then the final participants will be chosen.
Do you work as strategists, regional developers, or national S3 coordinator with Smart Specialisation? Is your region working with Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) with an interest in developing Interregional Value Chains and Entrepreneurial Discovery?
Application Call of Baltic Leadership Programme is now open until 19 August. Eligible countries: Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, as well as the German states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg.
More details about this BLP oraganised by the Swedish Instiute can be found in the flyer and on SI website.
For more information please contact Gabor Schneider, gabor.schneider@si.se, Tel: +46-8-453 78 59, Mobil: +46-732-318521
Are you interested in renewing and innovating the field of Bioeconomy and taking part in an intergenerational dialogue?
An entirely unique leadership training programme to tackle the challenges of youth participation in the Bioeconomy sector, for participants from the Baltic Sea Region.
BLP Youth addresses the need to better integrate younger generations into the field of Bioeconomy. Youth (up to 30 years of age) are vital for renewing and innovating the sector, which is necessary in the transition from a fossil based to a bio based society/economy, but today necessary links and methods for attracting and involving youth are lacking.
The programme is targeting representatives from youth organisations as well as representatives from organisations working with Bioeconomy. We are looking forward to receiving applications from Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Iceland, as well as the German states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg.
The application period is open until 22nd August. For detailed information check thewebsite of the Swedish Instituteor follow the link to submit your application. In case of questions, please contact Gabor Schneider at:gabor.schneider@si.se, Tel: +46-8-453 78 59, Mobile: +46-732-318521.
If your organisation would like to start or expand collaborations capable of contributing to sustainable economic, environmental or social development in the Baltic Sea Region, take a look at the funding provided by the Swedish Institute.
