Our commitment toward the European Week or Regions and Cities

The annual European Week of Regions and Cities is the most important kermesse entirely dedicated to regional policy: practitioners coming from all over Europe reunites in Brussels to showcase best practices and achieved results, as well as to discuss hot topics, this year we want to bring Circular Economy there.

In the past 17 years, the event has steadily increased its centrality and visibility, reaching a record number of 9000 participants and 330 sessions in 2019.

This year edition, from 12 to 15 October 2020 focuses on:

• Green Europe
• Cohesion and Cooperation
• Empowering Citizens

2020 marks the 30^th anniversary of the Interreg Europe programme; thus, its celebration will grant central stage to the aspect related to the European territorial cooperation.

In addition, the European Week of Regions and Cities represents also an important recurrence for REPLACE: it’s the first formal birthday! During last year edition, Veltha (that was in charge of the Kick-off-meeting) in collaboration with all partners, organized an official side event to launch the start of REPLACE by inviting other European projects dealing with circular economy and a representative of the European Commission, using this platform to discuss the results so-far reached in the transition and to highlight future objectives.

Not only in the hope of continuing but also of reinforcing its presence in such essential event for regional policymakers and public authorities, REPLACE is arranging a varied partnership to submit applications to become an official partner in the 2020 edition of the European Week of Regions and Cities.

That’s why REPLACE presented an application for a stand, with the scope of enhancing its visibility while engaging visitors through interactive activities. The initiative is in collaboration with its predecessor Horizon 2020 SCREEN project: REPLACE aims to obtain a stand for the entire duration of the European Week of Regions and Cities to display the results and objectives for the transition toward a circular economy that empower regional administrations.

In partnership with other 2 projects, REPLACE applied for a 90 minutes event, under the participatory lab format. The collaboration wants to highlight the efforts made in different programmes in the field of the circular economy, promoting also transversal synergies: Horizon 2020 DIGIPRIME, Interreg North Sea Region Circ-NSR and Interreg Europe REPLACE.

The purpose of the proposed event is to exploit the format of SCREEN policy Lab, which stands at the basis of both REPLACE and DIGIPRIME project ideas, by further enlarging the cooperation and exchange opportunities by opening the floor to all the meeting participants, in order to generate a collaborative learning and exchange environment among peer professionals working in regional policies dealing with the circular economy, granting them space to share their experiences, present best practices, highlight barriers and remedial measures.  Being the latter the heart of cross-regional cooperation, the proposed participatory lab celebrates the very soul of Interreg Europe, while showcasing its powerful potential.