Junta de Castilla y León

The Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castilla y León (ICE) organised in coordination with GKZ Freiberg and in collaboration with the Santa Bárbara Foundation the Castilla y León – EU Cluster Matchmaking Event within the framework of the REMIX project and as part of the European Commission´s EU Cluster Week initiative. The focus of the event was on how to strategically partner clusters and specialised eco-systems across Europe and show the best practices in such collaborations for stimulating new partnerships.

The event was proudly part of the first series of the EU Cluster Weeks 2018-2019, which help to promote national, regional and local cluster events, and to support SMEs’ growth, industrial transformation and regional economic development. The collaboration with the European Commission is a successful example of the EU´s efforts to build strong interregional collaboration to help strengthen business environments for business owners across Europe.

The Castilla y León – EU Cluster Matchmaking Event took place in April and was a great success with a good turnout of people. The importance and value of analysing the eco-systems and networking potential of EU industrial clusters, in order to foster their industrial members’ competitiveness in exploiting their innovation and demonstrating their growth potential in key presentations according to a systemised structure was one of the objectives of the event. Many key players such as the European Commission, the OECD, the EIT RM HUB CENTRUM KOŠICE, the Polish Stonemason's Cluster, and several other entities presented their way of practicing sustainable interregional cooperation in the field of raw materials. The event was an opportunity for attendees to meet peers from the same cluster topic and to broaden their knowledge, skills and business connections on an international, national, regional and local level.

The Castilla y León – EU Cluster Matchmaking Event was an opportunity to team up EU countries and their regions, to encourage European partnerships, to raise awareness of the role of clusters and their achieved results, and to collect feedback on common challenges and the ways they can be addressed in future initiatives. These EU, national and regional partnerships demonstrate the importance and success of such collaborative endeavours in supporting SMEs in their expansion and growth efforts.

The event ended with a visit to the facilities of the Santa Bárbara Foundation. The participants had the opportunity to visit the Foundation's unique facilities, such as the experimental tunnels, the open pit mine, the underground mine or the geothermal plant, among others. In addition, they learned about the entity's activities in terms of professional and specialised training and research and development.

If you are interested in the presentations from the Castilla y León – EU Cluster Matchmaking Event sessions, they can be viewed here.

This article was written by Melania V. Istrate, The Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castilla y León.

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Networking Regions

ICAMCyL

Junta de Castilla y León

Tue, 21/05/2019 - 09:00

Public / Private

Public

Future of EU mining regions collaboration

Hilary Webb — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 14:49:45 +0000

Future of EU mining regions collaboration Hilary Webb Fri, 26/02/2021 - 15:49

The Industrial modernisation S3P Mining industry and the CoMMER (ERRIN Task Force on Raw Materials) invite you to an online roundtable discussion on the future of the EU mining regions collaboration. It will be an opportunity to learn more about the initiatives supporting the networking of mining regions.

The online roundtable will take place on 4th March 2021 from 13:00 - 15:00 CET.

During the session, the S3P Mining Industry and the task force will be introduced as two sides of the same coin having a common objective to develop responsible EU mining. In addition, we will have an introduction to the H2020 project SCRREEN2 - Solutions for Critical Raw materials - a European Expert Network 2.

The meeting will the share aims and current status of these collaborations and to invite you to a brainstorming session exploring the good practices supporting and strengthening the EU mining regions collaboration. A more detailed agenda and instructions will be shared with registered participants from 1st March 2021 onwards.

Please register here before 18:00 CET on 3rd March, the link to join the meeting on Microsoft Teams will be sent on the morning of 4th March.

Agenda

The roundtable will be moderated by Ryan Titley, Director of Projects, ERRIN

13.00 - 13.05	*Opening and introduction*, Ryan Titley, Director of Projects, ERRIN
13.05 - 13.25	*Industrial modernisation S3P Mining industry – Supporting the development of the EU Regional Innovation Hubs of Responsible Mining & Metallurgy Business Solutions*, Ilkka Nykänen, partnership coordinator, Business Joensuu, North-Karelia, Finland and supported by the partners
13.25 - 13.45	*CoMMER, ERRIN Task Force on Raw Materials – supporting the regions in project making, policy shaping, partnering, and profiling,* introduction and background Juha Kaija, Geological Survey of Finland – GTK, MIREU project manager, and commented by the Brussels regional offices’ representatives
13.45 – 14.00	*CoMMER and SCRREEN2 - Synergies for improving the raw materials awareness across the EU regions,* W. Eberhard Falck, Vice-President, International Raw Materials Observatory
14.00 – 14.45	*Open roundtable* – moderated by the Ryan Titley, Director of Projects, ERRIN What are your expectations from the European regional collaboration? How the regions can operationalise their role in the implementation of the responsible mining and metallurgy industries? How to maximise the EU investments to develop sustainable regional and interregional mining ecosystems? How can regional cooperation promote a competitive mining & metallurgy sector and sustainable solutions? How the existing platforms Mining industry S3P and CoMMER can support each other?
14.45 – 15.00	*Conclusions and next steps,* Mika Riipi, County Governor, Lapland, Finland