Regional and local expertise, exchange and engagement for enhanced social cohesion in Europe

ended

Recognizing and leveraging the diversity of territorial approaches and expertise on integration, the project seeks to contribute to building more inclusive and cohesive European societies. The project will enhance transnational knowledge and experience sharing, cooperation and partnerships between local and regional authorities with different levels of expertise on integration, representing different European realities. The project will bring together regions and municipalities from Greece (EL), Italy (IT), the Netherlands (NL), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI) and Spain (ES). They are both protagonists (co-applicants) and beneficiaries of the action. The project is structured around key thematic areas consistent with the EU Action plan on integration. It relies on a peer-to-peer approach and capitalizes on territorial ownership and know-how. On such grounds, the action will: a) enhance local and regional actors’ knowledge and capacities to implement innovative integration measures, by analysing integration practices to distil thematic policy recommendations, and offering tailored capacity building opportunities; b) promote the implementation of innovative integration actions at territorial level, identifying lessons to enable their replication or scaling up; and c) set an informal network that encourages and leverages on diversity as an added value to facilitate integration, through regional thematic exchanges. As such, the project directly contributes to the implementation of European integration priorities, and to enhancing territorial capacities, resources and expertise to foster more cohesive European societies.