General information

The second ECR CoR Study Days will take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic in a fully virtual format. The conference, hosted by the President of the Podkarpackie region and President of the ECR Group, Marshal Władysław Ortyl, will focus on two timely topics:

• the role of smart specialisation in building our regions' future; and
   
• new trends in the EU budget 2021-2027.

Smart specialisation will be the first topic of our Study Days. Smart specialisation is a European Union tool that aims to boost growth and jobs in Europe by enabling regions to identify the areas in which they want to further develop, specialise and improve their competitiveness. 

The biggest benefits are that it is a place-based, bottom-up approach bringing together local and regional authorities, research institutes, the private sector and civil society to design smart specialisation strategies and work on projects for which they receive EU funding.
 
Smart specialisation strategies result in new European value chains and growth opportunities for EU regions. They help regions to gain competitive advantage, stimulate private investment and create jobs. 

New trends in the EU budget will be the second theme of our event and the topic could not be more timely given the recent agreement of EU leaders on the new long-term budget.

The overall budget for the years 2021-2027 is set at EUR 1.8 trillion. This amount combines the standard multiannual financial framework with an extraordinary recovery tool called Next Generation EU.

The aim of both elements of the new EU budget is to help EU countries and regions recover from the devastating shock to the EU economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the trends in the new budget – such as the green and digital transitions – come as no surprise in the XXI century. The panellists during our workshop will evaluate how these trends can be translated into specific projects and explore the other key features of the new budget. 
 

Why Podkarpackie? Podkarpackie has a unique set of smart specialisations including aviation and aerospace, the automotive industry, IT and telecommunications. It is the only region in Poland that identified aviation as its smart specialisation. It is famous for its Aviation Valley, reuniting most of Poland's aviation industry including over 160 businesses and employing almost 30 000 people.
 
Podkarpackie is a great example of how cooperation between businesses, NGOs and research and development centres is crucial to a region's development, implementing innovative solutions and therefore becoming an ideal location for investment. Applied research carried out in the laboratories of the region's universities plays a particular role in the development of Podkarpackie. 

Why now?​​​ Approximately three quarters of EU legislation is implemented at the subnational level. It is crucial that local and regional governments regularly and closely monitor the new trends in the EU budget. Otherwise, not only will there be delays in disbursements of EU funds, as we see in some Member States, but regions would also need to make up for this lost time. In most cases, if a subnational government has a high level of project management readiness, its success rate when it comes to using EU funds is much greater. 
 

This conference will help the regions to achieve such readiness at a time when the main features of the new programming period are already known. 

Programme

​19 February  Conference​: ​The ​role of smart specialisation in building our regions' future