The 2nd Stakeholders Workshop of Danube-INCO.NET will be held on 30 October 2015 in the frame of the 4th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region taking place this year in Ulm, in Germany.

The 4th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region will take place in Ulm, on 29 and 30 of October 2015 under the title of “Smart, social, sustainable – Innovation for the Danube Region”. The forum strongly emphasises innovation, professional training and dual education, entrepreneurship and civil society. In this year, the focus will be put on best practices and also on more complex questions of project development and funding. Several thematic sessions will be held to provide the opportunity for the participants to take a closer look at the complex mechanisms that should be put together on a political, project and funding level in order to profit largely of the potential of a macro-regional strategy.

The Stakeholders Workshop of the Danube-INCO.NET project will put great emphasis on assembling research and innovation policy stakeholders of the Danube Region, providing an opportunity to learn about their activities, facilitating discussion on the harmonization of their activities or possible joint actions.

Special support also supposed to be put on reinforcing policy dialogue among these stakeholders, facilitating the harmonization of their priorities, preparing a basis for joint actions, their involvement in the implementation of the EUSDR, as well as facilitating dialogue within the triple helix. Circa 30-40 representatives of regional and international organizations, national ministries, etc. from the Danube region or beyond are expected to attend the event.

Under the framework of the Danube-INCO.NET the report on Mapping of relevant stakeholders describing activities, positions, and good practices including recommendations for synergies was finished in April 2015. It examined 40 stakeholders including initiatives and programmes. Special attention was devoted to the outcomes of their recent activities, good practices to be transferred to other programmes or initiatives, and their future priorities in order to define synergies and formulate policy recommendations. Detailed proposals were formulated relating to

• Reinforced policy dialogue among regional stakeholders to exploit synergies and achieve mutual goals;
• Enhanced involvement of stakeholders in the implementation of EUSDR;
• Extending joint programmes to connect and exploit their potentials of the Region;
• Practical support to the RI community;
• Strengthened dialogue among the academia – industry – government.

More information can be found on the official website.