Appendix 9 Environmental Indicators Achieved in 2010

1. Identification

OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME Objective concerned European Territorial Co-operation Programme Eligible area concerned Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, the Flemish Region of Belgium, the UK and Norway. Programming period 2007 – 2013 Programme number (CCI No) 2007CB163PO055 Programme title North Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 ANNUAL IMPLEMENTATION Reporting year REPORT 2010 Date of approval of the annual report by the monitoring committee 30 June 2011

Table of Contents

1. Identification ...... 3

Executive Summary...... 5

2. Overview of the Implementation of the Operational Programme ...... 7

2.1 Achievements and Analysis of the Progress ...... 7 2.1.1 Information on the physical progress of the Operational Programme...... 12 2.1.2 Qualitative analysis...... 16 2.1.3 Financial information...... 20 2.1.4 Information about the breakdown of funds...... 26 2.1.5 Assistance repaid or re-used ...... 27 2.2 Information about compliance with Community law ...... 29 2.3 Significant problems encountered and measures taken to overcome them ...... 29 2.4 Changes in the context of the operational programme implementation...... 30 2.5 Substantial modification under Article 57 of Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006...... 30 2.6 Complementarity with other instruments ...... 30 2.7 Monitoring and Evaluation...... 32 3. Implementation by Priority ...... 44

3.1 Priority 1 ...... 46 3.1.1 Achievement of targets and analysis of the progress ...... 47 3.2 Priority 2 ...... 52 3.2.1 Achievements of targets and analysis of the progress...... 52 3.3 Priority 3 ...... 57 3.3.1 Achievements of targets and analysis of the progress...... 58 3.4 Priority 4 ...... 62 3.4.1 Achievements of targets and analysis of the progress...... 63 4. Technical Assistance...... 68

5. Information and Publicity ...... 72

6. Mid-term assessment of communications...... 82

Appendices...... 88

Executive Summary

2010 was the fourth year of operation of the North Sea Region Programme and the programme is now half-way through the structural funds period 2007 – 2013. Whilst new projects are still being approved, the majority of the available funding has now been allocated and the remaining funds are expected to be allocated within the foreseeable future.

This current period is perhaps the most exiting part of the programme delivery. The overall course of the programme has been set for quite some time and most of the projects in the programme are well into their main operational phase - some are even approaching completion. At this stage, project results are emerging with increasing speed and important lessons have been learned. It is, in other words, time to reap the benefits created by the projects.

In recognition of this, the Programme Monitoring Committee launched its Cluster Initiative. The overall purpose of the cluster initiative is to facilitate cooperation between existing projects with a view to improve project results, increase awareness of the results and facilitate the take-up of the results. In other words, the underlying idea behind the cluster initiative is to improve the value-for-money ratio of the projects in the programme. 2010 was dedicated to the preparation of the cluster initiatives and the first cluster projects are expected to be approved by the Programme Steering Committee in 2011.

Since the official launch of the programme in 2007, important progress has been made towards achieving the policy goals of the programme. The North Sea Region Programme has managed to continue and further develop the strong track record of transnational territorial cooperation programmes in the North Sea region. However, as we all know, the proof of the pie is in the eating and despite all achievements and progress made there is always room for learning and room for improvement. The on-going evaluation process, which was launched in 2010, will assist both the programme and the programme

stakeholders in identifying the points where action is needed with a view to maximising the effect of the programme.

After a process stretching over a period of almost 3 years, the compliance assessment process was finally completed in the beginning of 2010. The process of preparing all the underlying documents of the Article 71 description – which is the subject of the compliance assessment – was a significant challenge to the programme and the programme stakeholders. Despite the challenges, the process generated important learning points for all stakeholders involved.

2010 has shown that mutual trust and good co-operation between the programme stakeholders is of paramount importance for a good and speedy preparatory process and subsequent delivery of the programme. Only by bearing this in mind can a high degree of mutual ownership to the programme amongst stakeholders on all levels be achieved. The high degree of ownership is of invaluable importance for the delivery of the overall aim of the programme, which is:

“To make the North Sea Region a better place to live, work and invest in”.

2. Overview of the Implementation of the Operational Programme

2.1 Achievements and Analysis of the Progress

The fifth call for applications

Under the 5th call for applications which was open from 1 March to 7 April 2010, 26 project applications (including 9 applications for extensions) were submitted. For Priority 1 seven applications and two extensions were submitted, for Priority 2 no applications and four extensions, for Priority 3 nine applications and one extension and for Priority 4 one application and one extension.

In total, 7 full applications and eight applications for extensions were approved in the fifth call bringing the total number of projects approved through the programme to 46: 2 projects in the first call for applications (SC1), 15 in the second call for applications (SC2), 11 projects in the third call for applications (SC3), 11 projects in the fourth call (SC4) and 7 projects in the fifth call (SC5).

These 46 projects were chosen as they clearly reflect the IVB spirit and therefore the quality requirements of the programme. This process was supported by the continuous communication to programme stakeholders regarding the key attributes that the IVB programme is looking for.

Based on the assessment procedure for applications and the project selection criteria approved by the Programme’s Monitoring Committee, which include 11 core selection criteria about the programme, the partnership, policies, outputs, indicators and legislative requirements and 9 priority considerations about the approach, transnationality and knowledge transfer, project applications were assessed. In line with quality considerations for the programme, these criteria prescribe high standards for the new projects.

In general, the overall quality of the applications submitted in the 5th call was high. This applies for the “normal” applications as well as the applications for extensions. Most applicants displayed a good understanding of the requirements of the programme in terms of a balance between a relevant partnership and a good geographical coverage, relevant activities and results which fit the scope of the programme, a genuine transnational approach and potentials for long term perspectives. It is worth mentioning that a high number of private sector beneficiaries were included in the applications, which has had an impact towards more concrete outputs and a stronger orientation towards implementation.

Cluster projects Based on discussions with key stakeholders, the North Sea Region programme has decided to approach the issue of strategic projects through a clustering approach. The main background to this decision was a realisation that all projects in the programme should represent the highest possible quality and directly address the main themes. In this framework there were concerns that it might be de-motivating and artificial to single out some projects as especially ‘strategic’. Rather, the programme decided to return to the characteristics for strategic projects outlined in the Operational Programme:

• The geographical area or area of influence encompasses a large part of the region • Project activities refer not to a single standing local or regional case but contribute to the prosperous development of a major part of the region • The projects will have a lasting impact • The projects have political support and backing at the national level of the member states involved, which take responsibility for the endorsement of the policy recommendations • The project has the potential to act as the preparation phase for a major cooperation project

It was realised that the same criteria could be fulfilled by clustering the existing projects and allowing them to work together to improve results and increase the awareness and take-up of these results. Previous programme experience has shown that this process

requires specific funding and it was therefore decided to establish the clusters as small additional projects. In addition, a new role was created with a two-year contract issued for a cluster facilitator within the JTS. This position is designed to bring the projects together and ensure the fit of activities with programme objectives, national and European policies during cluster development and implementation.

Workshops during the annual conference 2010 in Stavanger, Norway were used to gauge project reactions to the proposal. As the feedback was almost exclusively positive, the decision was taken to go ahead, incorporating the recommendations of the projects on how best to proceed. A decision of the Monitoring Committee on 30 September 2010 confirmed these arrangements with the main features being that a cluster:

• Must include at least three partners from three current North Sea projects from three countries • Have a maximum total eligible budget of €750.000 • May not run for more than 18 months

On this basis the first call for cluster projects was provisionally announced at the Bremen project development workshop on 10-11 October 2010. Documents for the call and a guidance note were discussed by the cluster working group on 23 November 2010. The documents for the call were confirmed by Written Procedure No. 12 and the call dates were confirmed as 14 February to 14 March 2011. In addition, the cluster facilitator also attended meetings with a number of cluster ideas together in many cases with the relevant National Contact Points. These were: Energy Vision North Sea (16 November 2010), Low Carbon Regions (10 December 2010) and Watercap (15 December 2010).

Revision of application material and introduction of online system The overall purpose of the NSR monitoring system is to support all processes on an online-basis that are being carried out by the diverse programme and project stakeholders. The system allows direct entry and viewing of data by the relevant stakeholders. The monitoring system fully integrates the following processes:

• Pre-assessments • Applications, Technical Assessments, SC decisions and contracting • Approbation of 1st level controllers • Reporting (activities, finance, indicators), assessment, payments • Travel and activities outside the eligible area • Changes to approved projects (activity and finance), assessment and approval • Project Logbook • Programme budget and indicators • Technical Assistance expenditure • Irregularities and recoveries • Audits by Audit Authority • ERDF claims to the European Commission

In addition to the previously launched processes, a logbook function was introduced during 2010 that enables programme stakeholders to find comprehensive and up to date information on each of the approved projects.

After the introduction of the monitoring system, all above listed processes have now been fully transferred from paper to online. All functions have been used at several occasions and refined where relevant. Project and programme users have got acquainted with the functionalities and become more and more familiar with the online based system.

Main events hosted in 2010 A Joint Annual Conference (annual event held in cooperation with the North Sea Commission), one Thematic Event on communications, one Lead Beneficiary Seminars, one Preparatory Event for the fifth Call for Applications, as well as a number of seminars referring to mainly first level control, were held in 2010.

The Joint Annual Conference and General Assembly 2010 was held in June in Stavanger, Norway. The theme of the event was ‘North Sea Region 2020’. 250 participants attended the event, which took place over two days, which featured speakers from the European

Commission as well as high level speakers from relevant institutions and educational organisations.

A key feature of the event was the initial thematic and topical discussions on project clustering – the North Sea Region Programmes response to draw and capitalise on the collected learnings in the projects. Response was positive and intense discussions on the best way to facilitate clustering took place.

The Lead Beneficiary seminar was held in Bremen, Germany. The seminar was a joint Lead Beneficiary seminar and Clustering seminar (the NSR approach to strategic projects). Around 90 people participated in the respective parts of the seminar, with some overlaps of the audiences. There were sessions on finance, project development and communications, as well as smaller work shop groups focused on different aspects of successful clustering of projects under the Programme.

A preparatory seminar for the fifth Call for Applications was held in Antwerp, Belgium. In the seminar potential applicants had the opportunity to sit down with joint technical secretariat staff to get targeted feedback on project ideas.

One Thematic Event was held, on communications. It took place in Billund, Denmark. The seminar featured external experts on PR and new media.

Eight events specifically connected to project control and financial aspects of the Programme were held in 2010 (two in Germany and the Netherlands respectively and one each in Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden), one was arranged by a project of the Programme and the rest were coordinated at the National level but arranged by the joint technical secretariat.

Implementation Report – NSR tool for progress monitoring As a tool for informing programme stakeholders and monitoring the progress of activities, implementation reports on project activities have been introduced in 2009 and continued to be published in 2010. The reports are based on the information provided within the periodical activity reports that are submitted twice a year by each project. One such report will be compiled after each periodical reporting round providing selected project achievements clustered under different themes and showing the status of all projects running under the programme and the progress made within the previous six months. The projects are sorted according to the four priorities and an overall implementation summary is provided per priority. The Implementation Report 1 – 2010 based on the outcomes of the March 2010 as well as the Implementation Report 2 – 2010 based on the September reporting round are attached to this document (annex 13 and 14).

2.1.1 Information on the physical progress of the Operational Programme The NSRP Indicator System The indicator system that was developed as part of the Operational Programme serves to monitor the progress and to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions funded by the Programme.

The indicator system comprises output, result and impact indicators throughout the compulsory, generic and priority indicator groups. The compulsory and generic indicators are structured into the following sub-categories: core activities, awareness- raising/dissemination, strengthening transnational cooperation and territorial coverage.

Programme targets were established for a number of central indicators; the progress against the programme level targets is being monitored annually. For reasons of simplifying the indicator sheets, the programme baselines (always zero) and programme target, which were established for 13 of the indicators, are not displayed in the below tables. As a result of monitoring the programme’s success, it can however be stated that most of the programme level targets are well on their way and have been achieved and

overachieved, based on the implementation of project activities. Only four of the programme level targets have not yet been fully achieved. Further information will be provided in the below chapters.

The indicator data concerning baselines, targets and achievements that is displayed in the indictor tables derives from project applications and reports. All projects are, at application stage, required to specify indicators that quantify their activities. Projects need to establish compulsory, generic and priority specific indicators based on a given list of indicators that reflects the programme level indicator aims. Once approved, projects need to report on the progress of achieving the specified indicators once a year, with every other periodical report.

Quantitative and qualitative information based on periodically reported project indicators and progress reports on activities is being presented by the joint technical secretariat to each Monitoring Committee (MC) meeting and reported annually to the European Commission.

Compulsory and Generic Indicators The below table shows the compulsory and generic indicators that need to be established by all projects at application stage as far as relevant. For the second time with this Annual Report, the achievements based on the implementation of approved projects can be presented. The achievements for 2010 are based on the periodical project reports as of March and September 2010 submitted by 28 projects.

Compulsory Indicators Output/ Achievements 1 Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Raising awareness / dissemination Output 120A transnational dissemination number 116 223,407 2,214 40,946 43,160 outputs: exhibitions, own events, external events, published material, websites, TV and radio appearances, DVD’s, other [1] Result 120B individuals reached by (priority) number 0 1,708,137 236,606 4,782,749 5,019,355 specific awareness raising activities (male/female) [1] Strengthening transnational co-operation Result 130B Organisations involved in project number 522 2,893 725 1,895 2,620 (i.e. as contributor to activity or output) [1] Result 130C individuals involved in project (i.e. number 749 11,106 1,282 4,843 6,125 as contributor to activity or output) [1] Output 130D project administration outputs (I): number 53 463 46 275 321 transnational partner management meetings

1 SFC = System for Fund Management in the European Community.

Generic Indicators Output/ Achievements

Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Core activities Output 210A transnational training and staff number 67 705 49 281 330 exchange programmes developed [1] Result 210B individuals undertaken number 134 8,245 883 1,431 2,314 transnational training or staff exchange [1] Output 210C initiatives that provide or help find number 6 181 10 50 60 investment re-sources Result 210D complementary financing secured Euro 0 261,014,100 0 12,178,000 12,178,000 (financing additional to approved project budget) Output 210E transnational demonstration number 43 640 49 269 318 projects / pilot schemes / feasibility studies [1] Output 210F transnational knowledge bases, number 12 295 48 82 130 technology transfer centres / schemes, know-how exchange platforms [1]

Raising awareness / dissemination Impact 220A individuals within and outside the number 6,620 14,176,644 287,173 4,011,735 4,298,908 NSR with greater awareness of project outputs (male/female) [1]

Strengthening transnational co-operation Output 230A project administration outputs (II): number 6 210 107 31 138 shared IT systems

* All baselines and targets are based on the accumulated figures indicated by approved projects. Please note that these figures may be subject to increases once additional projects have been approved. [1] These figures are represented on an aggregated level. The data behind is collected on a disaggregated level, considering gender split, age groups, target groups and different levels of results, where relevant. The data on disaggregated level is available in annex 10.

Quality of indicator data The baselines and targets of the project indicators are, following approval, compared to other projects in order to safeguard a common base and realism for the indicators as well as to enable accumulation and aggregation on all levels. Nevertheless, changes may also in future become necessary should it become obvious that projects misestimated individual indicators.

With every new approved project, the accumulated baselines and targets of the projects will change according to the new projects’ objectives. The Operational Programme foresees a number of approximately 50 projects to be funded, currently, 46 projects are approved.

Further analysis of the above indicator achievements will be presented in the below section regarding qualitative analysis.

2.1.2 Qualitative analysis Analysis of the compulsory and generic indicator achievements The above presented compulsory and generic indicator tables present the project baselines and targets (based on all 46 approved projects) as well as the figures achieved as per implementation of projects, based on all 28 projects that have reported on their indicators in 2010.

The achievements figures are based on projects approved in the first, second and third call for applications. Whereas with the Annual Report 2009 only 14 projects had reported on indicators, the figures are now based on 28 projects. Projects approved in the fourth and fifth call will report on indicators for the first time in 2011.

Core activities In the field of core activities, quantifiable outputs have been generated in 2010 in relation to transnational trainings and staff exchange programmes develop (281), initiatives that provided help to find investment resources (50) and transnational demonstration projects, pilot schemes, feasibility studies (269), knowledge bases, technology transfer centres / schemes as well as know-how exchange platforms (82). Regarding the result indicators concerning core activities, 1,431 individuals have up to this point undertaken transnational trainings and staff exchanges.

Progress has been made since 2009 in all indicators of this category. Considering the total numbers, the levels of achieving the targets for the core activity indicators ranged between 5 and 49 percent.

Raising awareness / dissemination Regarding the compulsory and generic indicators on raising awareness and dissemination, high numbers of outputs have been generated. For example, 40,946 transnational dissemination outputs were delivered in 2010, this comprises outputs such as exhibitions, events, websites, published material, DVDs and TV and radio appearances. This generated the impact that more than 4 million individuals within and outside the NSR are with greater awareness of the project outputs. The total achievements reached for this indicator group lay between 19 and 184 percent of the targets that all 46 projects have specified accumulatively.

With regards to the programme level targets that were established by the Operational Programme for some of the indicators, expectations in this category have been exceeded highly already at this point: 6 times as many individuals were reached in comparison to the initial programme level targets (not displayed in table). The target figure on raising awareness has been overachieved by 300 percent.

The overall impression was that especially in the starting phases of projects, emphasis was laid on producing dissemination outputs (websites, brochures etc.), which already at

this stage led to strong results and impacts in terms of reaching people and raising awareness.

Strengthening transnational co-operation Great levels of project administration outputs have been achieved in 2009. Transnational partner meetings, shared IT systems and related outputs have been achieved by 14 to 55 percent related to the project targets, and by 31 to 214 percent related to the initial programme target.

Result indicators in this category, concerning organisations and individuals involved in the project as contributor, have been achieved by 16 and 36 percent in relation to the project targets. Lower values (3 and 9%) are evident in relation to the programme targets in this context. It appears that the projects have defined contributors in a more narrow way than the programme did.

The programme’s contribution to Lisbon process The programme contributes strongly to the aims of the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas in correspondence with the renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy. To achieve impact through funded projects 6 principles for assistance have been identified in addition to the four priorities. These form essential criteria for the number of the 50 projects which the programme is aiming for.

At present, the North Sea Region Programme has 46 projects approved and on-going, all respectively answering to the addressed challenges for the programme period. The projects are contributing to sustainable development which offers a positive long-term vision for the North Sea Region, and to promoting innovation and the transition to a knowledge-based economy. Projects are also promoting territorial cohesion across the North Sea Region in order to value the diversity of the European territory, supporting the European social model and to enable people to continue living in their home regions. Further criteria are equal opportunities, transnational co-operation demonstrating the

added value of undertaking the actions on a transnational basis and additionality to provide additional outputs with the support of the Programme.

Equal opportunities As laid out in the Operational Programme and in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006, Art. 16, the North Sea Region Programme is committed to the promotion of equal opportunities in all its activities. This includes projects having to demonstrate how they act to promote equal opportunities themselves but also, naturally, how the project will impact on equal opportunities in the Region. Projects will be expected to identify how their activities deliver positive benefits in the area of gender equality and non-discrimination.

Equality of opportunity is not purely about opportunities for women. The North Sea Region Programme recognises that people with disabilities, ethnic minority groups and others who may be disadvantaged need help and support to gain and stay in work, whether that be paid employment or in the voluntary sector. In promoting equal opportunities projects may consider the wider economic benefits that emerge in terms of tackling skills shortages, increasing employment levels, higher income levels and increasing levels of entrepreneurship within the economy, thus making full use of the productive potential of the North Sea Region’s work force.

Considering all 46 approved projects, the majority (61% or 28 projects) is positive in terms of equal opportunities, whereas the remaining 18 projects (39%) are neutral in this context. No project has indicated negative effects whatsoever.

Those projects indicating neutral effects referred to the situation that the project would not be a core theme of the project but that all gender, ethnic and social groups would have the same opportunities to be involved in project activities.

Those projects with a positive impact on equal opportunities have specified various ways of how to achieve such effects. This was on the one side reasoned through the lead beneficiary as well as project partner being equal opportunities employers. On the other hand positive impact was expected directly through project activities, by pro-actively

considering all social, ethnic and gender groups as target groups potentially benefiting of project results in relation to all four priorities. The detailed list of projects and their impact on equal opportunities can be found in annex 12.

2.1.3 Financial information Advance ERDF payments No advance ERDF payments were made to the programme in 2010.

Interim ERDF claims in 2010 In 2010, two ERDF claims to the European Commission were made. The Certifying Authority submitted the first application for ERDF 10 August 2010 which amounted to € 7,570,930. This ERDF claim was reimbursed 10 September 2010. The second payment claim was submitted on 21 December 2010 requesting € 5,865,1392. The basis for this second ERDF claim was the March 2010 periodic reports from the projects, cf. below. This means that the total ERDF applied for in 2010 was € 13.436.069. The total ERDF claimed by the end of 2010 was € 21,877,614.

Priority axes by source of funding (EUR) Priority axes No 1-4 Monitoring of implementation of these priorities is ensured primarily by means of periodic reports which the joint technical secretariat requests from the approved projects twice a year. This is in line with the ‘Manual for the 1st level control in the North Sea Region Programme’. The two reports are requested by the end of March and by the end of September. From these dates, the Lead Beneficiary of the project has 6 weeks to prepare and compile accumulated reports on project level. All beneficiaries have 4 weeks to prepare a report and have it controlled by a designated 1st level controller. Before the Lead Beneficiary submits the report to the joint technical secretariat, the report is – again - subject to a first level control by the designated 1st level controller of the Lead Beneficiary.

2 This amount of € 5,865,139 was reimbursed 4 March 2011.

The progress report covers both activities and finance. The 6 weeks deadline means, in practice, that the reports are due mid-May and mid-November. Fighting the threat from de- commitment, which in turn is derived from the n+2 rule, is an issue offered full attention. From mid-November the joint technical secretariat has approximately 1 month to process the periodic reports received including clarifying matters where this is necessary. The joint technical secretariat has to prepare all background evidence for the ERDF claim and pass it on to the Certifying Authority around mid-December in order to allow the Certifying Authority sufficient time to make its checks. The checks will be made between mid- December and Christmas. Once the checks are completed, the ERDF claim will be uploaded in the SFC system by the Certifying Authority. Preparing the background evidence within a month poses quite a challenge for the joint technical secretariat as most reports have (minor) shortcomings requiring clarification before the exact eligible costs can be established. Likewise, the time pressure on the Certifying Authority is considerable. To put it short the period from mid-November up to Christmas is hectic and poses quite a challenge for all units involved. A challenge, which was successfully overcome in December 2010 (please see below).

March 2010 reporting round Out of 39 projects approved at the four first calls for applications, all (39) projects submitted a periodic progress-report. All reports were processed and 37 of the 39 projects were reimbursed by the Certifying Authority in 2010. The last two outstanding reports contained issues which were not clarified until the September 2010 reporting round. The accumulated amount paid in 2010 for this round was: • € 11, 2 Million ERDF and • € 0,865 Million ERDF-equivalent.

September 2010 reporting round Projects approved at the first four calls (39 projects) were requested to report. A significant number of the reports contained remarks from the first level controllers reflecting shortcomings in the reports or simple clerical mistakes. Before a periodic report can be considered fully processed by the joint technical secretariat, and passed on to the

Certifying Authority which, in turn, will consider to which extent the individual claims from projects can be included in the ERDF claim to the European Commission, all outstanding issues have to be clarified. From mid-November to mid-December 2010, the joint technical secretariat managed to check most of the incoming periodic reports in order to establish the amount of eligible expenditure for the individual projects. As for the payments to projects, the time constraint by the end of 2010 meant that there was hardly any time left for the joint technical secretariat to prepare the background documentation for project payments for the Certifying Authority. All project payments but two were therefore initiated in 2011 by the Certifying Authority.

The N+2 rule and annual spending targets for the programme and the projects As emphasised in Article 93 of the General Council Regulation 1083/2006, the European Commission will de-commit any part of a programme’s budget, which has not been spent and claimed by projects, or as technical assistance, by 31 December of the second year following the year of commitment. This rule is also known as the N+2 rule or the auto de- commitment rule.

The de-commitment rule will impact on programme level, but as the programme consists of projects, individual projects will be directly affected in case of de-commitment. Avoiding de-commitment obviously represents a common key challenge for the joint technical secretariat and for all other programme stakeholders.

The annual spending targets for each project have proven to be a very important tool for managing the de-commitment challenge. The spending targets for each project are identical to the annual budgets from the project application for each project and are also defined in the (subsidy) contract. The spending targets for each project are in other words, defined by the project applicants themselves and subsequently confirmed by the Lead Beneficiary when signing the subsidy contract.

The emphasis placed on adherence to the spending targets on project level rests on the overall assumption that a project budget represents a quantified plan for the project

implementation. It is the assumption that when a project meets its spending targets, it is also, by and large, progressing in accordance with the implementation plan content wise. If, on the other hand, a project incurs less (or more) expenditure than anticipated, this may be an indication that the level of activities in the project is different from what was anticipated. Put another way, something may be wrong. In all such cases, the joint technical secretariat will make contact to the project and offer assistance as necessary. Experience from the Interreg IIIB North Sea programme indicates that over-budgeting is rare and that there is a very clear link between project finances and the activities. In addition, this early intervention approach actually works – not only in terms of avoiding de- commitment but also in terms of keeping projects on track.

On the aggregate level, this “spending target tool” is crucial for avoidance of de- commitment and for monitoring the programme’s overall spending as delays can result in a significant loss of funding for the programme as a whole.

The N+2 rule and the advance payments made to the programme In the eyes of the European Commission, the advance payments made to the programme in 2007, 2008 and 2009, which in total amounts to € 10,390,422, constitute expenditure paid out and can therefore be set off against the programme’s cumulative spending target in 2010.

New regulation amending the N+2 rule The (EU) regulation No 539/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 June 2010, amending General Council Regulation 1083/2006, (EC) entered into force on 25 June 2010. This new Regulation introduced a change of Article 93 of the General Council Regulation 1083/2006 regarding the calculations for the purpose of the automatic de-commitment (the N+2 rule).

With this important change, the N+2 rule does not apply to budget commitments related to 2007. Instead the annual commitment of € 18,027,819 for 2007 will be split equally over

the remaining 6 years from 2008 to 20133. Following this revision of the automatic de- commitment rule, the programme’s cumulative spending target for 2010 was just above € 11 million. As indicated above, the total ERDF claimed by the end of 2010 was € 21,877,614, thus the de commitment threshold for 2010 was exceeded by approximately € 10,800,000. There was, therefore, no auto de-commitment of programme funds in 2010.

Although (EC) Regulation 539/2010 meant that the programme was faced with a more manageable spending target for 2010, it must be borne in mind that the spending targets for the years 2011 to 2015 have been adjusted upwards accordingly. If, however, the approved projects live up to their “self-defined” spending targets then the programme should be able to avoid auto de-commitment up to 2015. However, it must be emphasised that avoidance of de-commitment still depends on the projects claiming ERDF funds in line with their spending targets in the approved application.

The introduction of (EC) Regulation 539/2010 has no implications on the speed of the project implementation (and the take up of ERDF). The projects will still have to deliver in accordance with the approved application and the subsidy contract. By doing so, the financial buffer on programme level, which has been created by this amendment in the Regulation, can be carried over to the next years and used in case any critical situation occur. Bearing in mind the important experiences from the IIIB programme, if just a few large projects fail to deliver this can compromise programme level spending.

Priority axis No. 5 The programme host, Central Denmark Region, has, in accordance with the Service Level Agreement, invoiced the joint technical secretariat for the costs for Technical Assistance incurred and laid out by Central Denmark Region in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The joint technical secretariat has settled the current account in line with the Service Level Agreement.

3 € 18,027,819/6 years = € 3,004,637 per year.

Priority axes by source of funding (EUR)

Expenditure paid out by the Corresponding public Private Expenditure paid by the body Total payments beneficiaries included in contribution expenditure [1] responsible for making received from the payment claims sent to the payments to the Commission *** managing authority * beneficiaries** Priority Axis 1 € 12.226.838,00 € 10.807.370,00 € 1.419.468,00 € 12.226.838,00 € 5.120.676,00 Specify the Fund Of which ESF type expenditure Of which ERDF type expenditure € 12.226.838,00 € 10.807.370,00 € 1.419.468,00 € 12.226.838,00 € 5.120.676,00 Priority Axis 2 € 15.207.849,00 € 13.977.306,00 € 1.230.543,00 € 15.207.844,00 € 5.597.483,00 Specify the Fund Of which ESF type expenditure Of which ERDF type expenditure € 15.207.849,00 € 13.977.306,00 € 1.230.543,00 € 15.207.844,00 € 5.597.483,00 Priority Axis 3 € 4.908.525,00 € 4.041.313,00 € 867.212,00 € 4.908.524,00 € 1.355.826,00 Specify the Fund Of which ESF type expenditure Of which ERDF type expenditure € 4.908.525,00 € 4.041.313,00 € 867.212,00 € 4.908.524,00 € 1.355.826,00 Priority Axis 4 € 9.128.196,00 € 8.941.914,00 € 186.282,00 € 9.128.194,00 € 2.796.580,00 Specify the Fund Of which ESF type expenditure Of which ERDF type expenditure € 9.128.196,00 € 8.941.914,00 € 186.282,00 € 9.128.194,00 € 2.796.580,00 Priority Axis 5 € 1.903.184,00 € 1.141.911,00 € 0,00 € 1.903.184,00 € 1.141.911,00 Specify the Fund Of which ESF type expenditure Of which ERDF type expenditure € 1.903.184,00 € 1.141.911,00 € 0,00 € 1.903.184,00 € 1.141.911,00

Grand Total € 43.374.592,00 € 38.909.814,00 € 3.703.505,00 € 43.374.584,00 € 16.012.476,00 Total in transitional regions in the grand total Total in non-transitional regions in the grand total

ERDF type expenditure in the grand total € 43.374.592,00 € 38.909.814,00 € 3.703.505,00 € 43.374.584,00 € 16.012.476,00 where the Operational Programme is co- financed by the ESF

* These figures mirror the figures, which were used for the calculation of the ERDF claim submitted to the European Commission in December 2010. They are cleared for any ineligible expenditure presented by the projects and any additional deductions made by the Certifying Authority, while processing the claims from beneficiaries. ** These are expenditure not ERDF figures. The ERDF amount reimbursed by the Certifying Authority by the end of 2010 is half of the amount indicated for priority 1 to 4.

*** One interim payments was made to the Programme by the European Commission in 2010.

[1] There is no private expenditure reported for Priority 5 as all match-funding comes from public contribution. The figure of € 1.141.911 ("corresponding public contribution") reflects the co-funding received from the Commission.

2.1.4 Information about the breakdown of funds Part C: Cumulative breakdown of allocations of the Community contribution by category in the annual and final report on implementation.

Commission reference No: 2007CB163PO055 Name of Programme: North Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 Date of the last Commission decision for the Operational Programme concerned: 27-10-2008 Combination of codes of dimension 1 to 5

Code (*) Code (*) Code (*) Dimension Dimension Code (*) Dimension Code (*) 1 2 Dimension 4 Dimension Allocated Priority Form of 3 Economic 5 Community Theme Finance Territory Activity Location Contribution 03 01 09 01 09 € 2.749.628 03 01 09 06 09 € 822.868 03 01 09 10 09 € 2.074.971 03 01 09 16 09 € 5.094.379 03 01 09 18 09 € 2.204.434 03 01 09 22 09 € 2.786.170 09 01 09 22 09 € 1.383.357 13 01 09 17 09 € 3.016.783 26 01 09 11 09 € 7.902.902 27 01 09 11 09 € 2.435.375 28 01 09 21 09 € 2.401.418 29 01 09 11 09 € 2.089.193 30 01 09 11 09 € 1.282.287 32 01 09 11 09 € 2.287.825 41 01 09 07 09 € 1.481.027 41 01 09 21 09 € 1.905.547 43 01 09 11 09 € 2.153.072 43 01 09 12 09 € 3.709.876 43 01 09 21 09 € 3.911.718 48 01 09 11 09 € 5.607.670 48 01 09 21 09 € 2.254.052 49 01 09 07 09 € 2.331.967 49 01 09 21 09 € 15.964.240 53 01 09 21 09 € 2.499.300 54 01 09 02 09 € 3.095.297 54 01 09 08 09 € 2.598.225 54 01 09 21 09 € 1.865.740 56 01 09 16 09 € 1.498.386 56 01 09 19 09 € 1.176.518 59 01 09 22 09 € 875.650 61 01 09 20 09 € 9.113.651 63 01 09 06 09 € 1.481.256 64 01 09 11 09 € 2.003.805 81 01 09 17 09 € 1.732.136 81 01 09 22 09 € 2.188.198 TOTAL €107.978.921

2.1.5 Assistance repaid or re-used No assistance was cancelled during 2010.

2.1.6 On-the-spot verification In accordance with the requirements expressed by the European Commission in its approval letter of 4 March 2010 of the management and control system set up for the programme, an overview of all first level control verifications done on-the-spot has been gathered from the September 2010 reporting round onwards. Acknowledging the difficulties some First Level Controllers had with understanding the exact nature of the information required, it was decided not to reject the 2010 reports from beneficiaries whose First Level Controller not reported on the extent of the first level control verifications done on-the-spot. Thus, the table below therefore only gives an approximate picture of the first level control verifications done on-the-spot.

2.2 Information about compliance with Community law In accordance with Article 9 and 12 of the general regulation (1083/2006) and the ERDF regulation (1080/2006), operations financed by the Structural Funds must be in conformity with the provisions of the Treaty, with instruments adopted under it and with Community policies and actions, including the rules on competition, state aid rules, policy on the award of public contracts, strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and on the elimination of inequalities and the promotion of equality between men and women.

Measures to ensure compliance with the relevant rules and regulations mentioned above are integrated into the procedures in place for the day-to-day administration and delivery of the North Sea Region Programme.

2.3 Significant problems encountered and measures taken to overcome them No significant problems were encountered in implementing the operational programme, as identified under the procedure in Article 62 (1) (d) (i) of Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006.

However, it should be noted that in a letter of 4 March 2010, the European Commission concluded on the Compliance Assessment as submitted by the Audit Authority January 2010. Following the Compliance Assessment, the European Commission concluded that the management and control system complies with the requirements of Articles 58 to 62 of the Regulation (EC) 1083/2006. The European Commission took note of the observation made by the Audit Authority, that the Operation Programme does not identify an Intermediate Body. However, the fact that some bodies may fall into the definition given in the Regulation 1083/2006 (Article 2 (6)), did not prevent concluding that the management and control system complies with the requirements of Articles 58 to 62 of the Regulation (EC) 1083/2006. The Audit Authority was asked to follow up on its recommendations during systems audits in 2010 and 2011 regarding the risks associated with the delegation of Managing Authority tasks to the Department for Regional Policy of the Central Denmark Region and the effectiveness of control by the Managing Authority. A follow up on other Audit Authority recommendations was requested with the control reports as well.

2.4 Changes in the context of the operational programme implementation There were no changes to the Operational Programme in 2010.

2.5 Substantial modification under Article 57 of Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 No substantial modification proved necessary in 2010.

2.6 Complementarity with other instruments According to the European Territorial Co-operation guidelines, a programme must be complementary to the measures promoted under a number of core policies and programmes. Building synergies and complementarities with other Community and national policies, initiatives and programmes will maximise the strategic impact of the North Sea Region Programme, by utilising the results of these or forming the basis for follow-up activities, such as investments. An overview of core policies and other Community and national instruments is provided in annex 7. In order to ensure complementary with other instruments a number of prerequisites have been defined by the Programme:

Additionality At application stage only projects, which provide “additional” outputs will be selected. This means e.g outputs which would not have been provided without support by the Programme. This is also to ensure that funds from the Programme do not replace public or equivalent structural expenditure by a beneficiary.

Coherence and Complementarity with Community and National Policies and Programmes By ensuring coherence and complementarity, the Programme aims to achieve maximum impact on account of its distinct strategic focus and through its position in the structural and regional policy environment, maximising its leverage effect. At application stage projects are expected to have considered links with other Community and national policies, initiatives and programmes in line with the general regulation4 and to specify and describe complementarity and synergies with different Community funds and national programmes

4 Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006, Art. 9 and Regulation (EC) 1080/2006, Art. 12

in the participating countries. This information will be considered before decision-making to grant funding.

Coherence with measures financed by the EAFRD and EFF To some extent Programme operations may take place in the same sectors as the rural development programmes financed under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), particularly axis 3 (The quality of life in rural areas and diversification of the rural economy) and axis 4 (Local Action Groups). Examples may be e.g. diversification into non-agricultural activities, support for business creation and development, encouragement of tourism activities, basic services for economy and rural population as well as conservation and upgrading of the rural heritage. Under axis 4, transnational co-operation projects may operate in those sectors covered by the rural development programme as well. In those regions in the programme area with significant sector-dependency on fishery the North Sea Region Programme may operate in the same areas as actions co-financed by the European Fisheries Fund (EFF). These might especially be with regard to sustainable development of coastal fishing areas, which are in the process of economic decline. In terms of these measures projects are as well expected at application stage to have considered accordant links and to specify and describe complementarity and synergies. Again, this information will be considered before decision-making to grant funding.

Baltic Sea Strategy The European Commission has adopted a Communication on the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, which was implemented already on 10 June 2009. The Baltic Sea strategy aims at coordinating supporting actions such as better transport links, reducing pollution in the sea, promoting innovation in small and medium sized enterprises and improving accident responses. The aim is to promote a more balanced development of the Region as a whole. The EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region does also constitute an important step towards the regional implementation of the Integrated Maritime Policy in the Baltic. Some of the countries in the North Sea Region programme are also involved in the

Baltic Sea strategy, the North Sea Region programme will follow the implementation of the Baltic Sea strategy and its possible effects for the North Sea.

2.7 Monitoring and Evaluation

Programme Management, Monitoring and Control A joint management structure for the programme has been established which has been fully described in Chapter 5 of the Operational Programme (OP), as well as in the management and control system (Article 71 description). The joint technical secretariat carries out its functions in accordance with the decisions of the transnational Monitoring and Steering Committees. The Monitoring and Steering Committees have membership from both the national and regional levels of the seven participating countries on both committees. Both committees saw full attendance during 2010.

Monitoring Committee The tasks of the Monitoring Committee are described in detail in the Operational Programme (OP) pages 85 – 86.

Membership and Operations The Monitoring Committee consists of three representatives from the national and regional levels of each Member State and Norway, including a representative of the authority responsible for the Interreg Programme and the chairperson and co-chairperson of the Steering Committee. In addition, a representative from the European Commission, one observer per delegation and one representative from Central Denmark Region (as the host and employer of the joint technical secretariat) may attend. The list of members of the Monitoring Committee during 2010 is supplied in annex 1.

The Monitoring Committee (MC) has a chairperson and a co-chairperson nominated for a period of twelve months and alternating between the countries involved in the following order (continuing the order followed in the Interreg IIIB programme) (DK, UK, SE, NL, G and FL). The chairpersons in 2010 were Fiona Wieland and Mark Overman, the Netherlands.

Preparations for the Monitoring Committee meetings are made by the joint technical secretariat. The chairperson approves the draft agenda and the papers are circulated three weeks in advance of the meetings. The decisions of the Monitoring Committee are made by consensus and are recorded in the minutes of the meeting, which are formally approved at the start of the next meeting.

The Managing Authority The Managing Authority for the Programme is the Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority, Silkeborg, Denmark. The majority of Managing Authority tasks have been delegated to the Secretariat for Regional Development as part of the Central Denmark Region. The joint technical secretariat is employed by the Secretariat for Regional Development.

The Certifying Authority The Certifying Authority for the Programme is the Central Denmark Region Accounts Department, Denmark.

Steering Committee The tasks of the Steering Committee (SC) are described in detail in the Operational Programme (OP) pages 86 - 87. The decisions of the Steering Committee are made by consensus.

Membership and Operations The Steering Committee consists of three representatives from the national and regional levels of each Member State and Norway. It is the task of these representatives to ensure that the views of social partners, including environmental actors, are taken into account in accordance with the regulations and traditions of the countries concerned. In addition, the chair and co-chair of the Monitoring Committee attend in an advisory capacity, a representative from the European Commission may attend as an observer, and one representative from the Central Denmark Region (as host and employer of the joint technical secretariat) takes part as an observer. One observer per delegation is also

allowed to attend. The list of members of the Steering Committee in 2010 is supplied in annex 2.

The Steering Committee (SC) has a chairperson nominated for a period of twelve months and alternating between the countries involved in the following order (continuing the order followed in the Interreg IIIB programme) (SE, UK, DK, FL, G, NL and N). The chairperson in 2010 was Pim Bonne, Flanders.

The Joint Technical Secretariat The tasks of the joint technical secretariat are described on page 85 of the Operational Programme (OP). The joint technical secretariat works according to the Business and Implementation plan approved by the Monitoring Committee and updated annually. The joint technical secretariat is in charge of the day-to-day implementation of the programme and acts as the joint technical secretariat for the Monitoring and Steering Committees. The joint technical secretariat is hosted by Central Denmark Region, Denmark, according to the Letter of Agreement between Central Denmark Region and the national authorities. The joint technical secretariat has an international staff of 18 people, supplemented by regular student placements. The Central Denmark Region is the host and employer of the joint technical secretariat. The Annual Employer Statement can be found in annex 4.

The Work of the Monitoring Committee in 2010 There were two Monitoring Committee meetings during 2010. Monitoring Committee meeting no. 6 took place in Groningen, the Netherlands on 14-15 April 2010. Monitoring Committee meeting no. 7 took place in Haarlem, the Netherlands on 29-30 September 2010.

Monitoring Committee Meeting no. 6, 14-15 April, Groningen, the Netherlands The Monitoring Committee meeting considered the following issues: 1. Welcome and introduction 2. Apologies for absence 3. Minutes 4. Written procedures – Update 5. Article 71 and the conclusion on the Compliance Assessment 6. Systems control of the North Sea Region Programme 7. Strategic projects – clustering 8. On-going evaluation 9. 5th and 6th call for applications 10. Reflections on a North Sea Strategy 11. The North Sea Region Programme Business Plan 12. Annual Conference 2010 13. Publicity and communications 14. Closing of the Interreg IIIB programme 15. The structural funds period 2014-2020: Progress made so far. 16. Procurement 17. AOB

Monitoring Committee Meeting no. 7, 29-30 September, Haarlem, the Netherlands The Monitoring Committee meeting considered the following issues: 1. Welcome and introduction 2. Apologies for absence 3. Minutes 4. Written procedures – Update 5. The closure of the Interreg IIIB North Sea Programme 6. Report from the 2nd level control check of TA expenditure July 2010 and the Systems Control Check of the Certifying Authority 7. Remaining funding available in the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme 8. Next Call for Applications 9. Revision of the national Letters of Agreement 14. Joint Conference of ETC Transnational Cooperation Programmes (Interreg Programmes) 11. Revision of Fact Sheet No. 7: Public-Private Partnerships Day 2: When the meeting began, it was decided to start with the agenda item 13 and follow with the agenda item 12. 13. Presenting the new Cluster Facilitator 12. The clustering process 10. Simplification procedures 15. Final Report Form for projects under the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme 16. Structural Funds period 2014-2020 17. Procurement 18. Approval of Rules of Procedure for the Steering Committee 19. AOB The members had received two extra information papers before the meeting for a short update on different matters. The joint technical secretariat presented the papers A+B. 19A. Projects reporting, programme ERDF claims to the European Commission and spending targets 19B. Delivery of the Monitoring System

Written Procedures There were four written procedures between the sixth and the seventh meeting of the Monitoring Committee. The first written procedure was concerning the Norwegian grant rate. The purpose of this was to change the Norwegian grant rate from 30% to 50%. The main reason for this was that the reduction of the grant rate slowed down the allocation of funding for Norwegian beneficiaries. The outcome of the first written procedure was to change the Norwegian grant rate to 50%. The change will be valid from the fifth call for applications, which open on 14 March 2011. The second written procedure was concerning the over-allocation of priority 2. The purpose of the second written procedure was to consider and approve the recommendation from the informal Monitoring Committee meeting to allow an over- allocation of Priority 2 by € 805,000 (2.1%). At Steering Committee meeting No 5 in Ghent, the committee decided to approve 4 projects under Priority 2. The total ERDF budget for these 4 projects amounts to € 1,347,606. This amount exceeds the remaining available funding in the priority by € 805,000. On this basis, an informal Monitoring Committee meeting took place in connection with SC 5. At the informal meeting, it was decided to recommend to the Monitoring Committee to over-allocate Priority 2 by € 805,000 (2.1%) which will accommodate the decisions made by the Steering Committee. The outcome of the second written procedure was to approve the over-allocation of priority 2. The third written procedure was concerning the approval of the draft Annual Report 2009. The purpose of this written procedure was to approve the draft Annual Report 2009. The fourth and final written procedure was concerning the application form and selection criteria for cluster projects. As agreed at MC7 in Haarlem, the development of an application form and a set of selection criteria for the upcoming call for cluster projects were delegated to the cluster project working group. The documents should subsequently be circulated to the Monitoring Committee for approval by written procedure. The deadline for this written procedure was set to Friday 7 January 2011.

The work of the Monitoring Committee to ensure quality of implementation The Monitoring Committee met twice in 2010 in order to prepare and implement the framework of the programme. In addition, regular contact is maintained with the

chairperson of the Committee between meetings so that important issues can be discussed and Written Procedures initiated if necessary.

In addition to these activities, the Monitoring Committee received regular reports on the extent to which the application procedure and call for proposals developed, in accordance with the Letters of Agreement.

The work of the Steering Committee There was one Steering Committee meeting for considering project applications in 2010. The decisions of the Steering Committee are based on close observance of the criteria for project assessment in order to ensure the quality of the programme. The range of options available to the committee was: approval and rejection.

Steering Committee meeting no. 5, 2-3 June 2010, Ghent, Belgium At the fifth call for applications, the joint technical secretariat received 26 applications (of which 9 applications were for extensions) of which all were found to be eligible. Steering Committee meeting no. 5 considered 26 projects and approved 17 (a list of the approved projects can be found in annex 6).

Written Procedures There were two written procedures after the Steering Committee meeting no. 5. The first written procedure was concerning some major partner changes for the projects iTransfer and LO-PINOD. The iTransfer and LOPINOD projects were both approved at Steering Committee number five meeting. Both projects shared the same Lead Beneficiary – South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), UK. However, due to the UK Government’s decision to close all Regional Development Agencies, SEEDA have subsequently issued a request to withdraw from both LO-PINOD and iTransfer as the Lead Beneficiary. SEEDA therefore requests its substitution in both the projects through Institute for Sustainability (IfS), UK. The potential new Lead Beneficiary IfS has submitted Letters of Intent for both projects. In addition for LOPINOD, the written procedure also addressed the approval of the addition of two partners that were added in the context of the Lead Beneficiary change

and in response to the condition of approval, respectively. The outcome of the first written procedure was to approve the proposed change of beneficiaries in the two projects.

The second and final written procedure was concerning endorsement of the minor activity and partner changes and to approve the two requests for major budget changes. As discussed at Steering Committee meeting No. 5 (SC 5) in Ghent, it was agreed to continue to let the joint technical secretariat handle minor project changes, including extensions of time line of up to 6 months. These changes would be subsequently endorsed by SC. The Steering Committee will directly decide upon major activity or partner changes. Given the fact that there will not be a Steering Committee for some time it was agreed that project changes would be collected and sent out for decision or endorsement by written procedure once a quarter. Following SC5 a number of minor partner and activity changes have been requested by projects and require endorsement by the SC. In addition, two major budget change requests (moving money between beneficiaries) have also been requested, which require a decision by the SC. The outcome of the second written procedure was to endorse the minor activity and partner changes and approve the major budget changes.

Evaluation Activities Ongoing Evaluation Following the initial discussion in Viborg, Denmark in May 2009, the Durham, U K event in September 2009 and the MC 5 recommendations from Malmö, Sweden in October 2009, it was established that an ongoing evaluation procedure should be in place for the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme. During 2010, there were three meetings with the Evaluation Steering Group (ESG). The first meeting took place in Brussels, Belgium on 1-2 February 2010. The second meeting took place in Brussels, Belgium on 5 March 2010. The third and last meeting took place on 1 October 2010 in Haarlem, the Netherlands. The Evaluation Steering Group (ESG) comprises representation from each member state, including staff from the joint technical secretariat. The main task for this group during 2010 was to establish an Evaluation Plan for the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme. Following the discussion from the Monitoring Committee meeting in October 2009, and with the Evaluation Steering Group (ESG) during 2010, the Evaluation Plan was presented

and approved by the Monitoring Committee no. 6 on 14-15 April 2010, Groningen, the Netherlands. The main objective for the Programme’s ongoing evaluation is that it is carrying out an ongoing evaluation as a key business tool to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the current work procedures. The evaluation should assess the existing strategy, management and implementation of the Programme and suggest relevant amendments.

For the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme, it means that ongoing evaluation will be used to reflect on the programme’s progress towards achieving its objectives, both on programme and on project level. The adopted Evaluation Plan for the ongoing evaluation is based on three main themes that are of special interest to the Programme.

Institutional capacity and administrative performance Financial management and control set-up The efficiency of programme organisational structures The efficiency of application procedures and project development

Added value Added value of the programme impact and coverage Added value of transnational cooperation on project level Legacy

For the legacy, sub-theme, the following topics should be considered: Projects’ contribution to EU policies Projects’ approach towards innovation Relevant measures / activities on project level in terms of project design Financial recovery

Publicity and communications Connection between communications and content results in projects = well communicated projects

Project and programme cooperation in communications Programme visibility Relevant and effective measures for the future (on project level)

With regards to the timetable, it was recommended that the ongoing evaluation should start as early as possible for all three themes but allow the different sub theme evaluations to be carried out at different stages during the programme period. Financial management and control set-up, Programme impact and coverage, Legacy and connection between communications and content results in projects would be measured twice during the programme period. In addition, the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme will also contribute to the cross programme evaluation which will be carried out by INTERACT, which will run as a pilot for the European Commission and start in autumn 2010.

Following the Monitoring Committee’s decision, the Evaluation Steering Group (ESG) continued its work during 2010, establishing the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the ongoing evaluation. The Terms of Reference was finalised in the end of 2010.

Strategic Environmental Assessment The monitoring of the environmental impacts is an integrated part of the evaluation activities of the North Sea Programme 2007-2013.

As part of the Programme evaluations in line with the General Regulations and the provisions laid down in the Operational Programme on evaluation, likely significant environmental effects are being assessed. This ensures that appropriate remedial actions can be undertaken if the evaluation reveals unintended adverse environmental effects.

Measures concerning monitoring are laid down in the Operational Programme concerning the role and composition of the Monitoring Committee in reference to the General Regulations. Monitoring of environmental effects takes place in the Annual Report as an existing monitoring arrangement. Specific provisions concerning monitoring of the environmental effects is being carried out on the basis of systematically collected

information on likely environmental effects via the implementation of projects (periodical project reports).

The following environmental issues are being monitored: • Biodiversity, flora and fauna • Air and climate factors • Landscape • Energy efficiency • Use of renewable and non-renewable resources • Adaptation to climate change

Summary likely environmental impacts For all 46 applications approved by 2010 it can be stated that at application stage all projects report likely positive or neutral and no negative effects on the environment. Whereas seven of the projects will remain neutral, 39 projects foresee positive impacts. This information will be subsequently followed-up in the reporting during implementation of the projects. For more detailed information, please consult annex 8 and 9.

Summary environmental indicator achievements Up and including 2010, 16 Natura 2000 areas were affected by activities carried out by the projects Cliwat, enerCoast, CPA, DiPol (Priority 2) and Dryport (Priority 3). Build with Care and Answer, both from Priority 4, have reduced green house gas emissions by 140 tons of CO2 equivalent.

A first hectare of landscape area was subject to change based on Dryport activities so far. EnerCoast has, in addition, delivered 50MWh of additional capacity for renewable energy production, aiming at delivering 200.

In terms of adaptation to climate change, Mare has on the basis of its project activities, delivered effects in this context on an area of 651 km2. Answer has managed to raise the awareness of 1698 people in connection to the adaptation to climate change.

Considerable progress is anticipated for the coming years, as a large number of additional targets in terms of environmental effects have been defined by approved projects that remain to be implemented.

3. Implementation by Priority

The NSRP Priorities A number of common challenges and opportunities for the future development of the North Sea Region were identified to provide a framework for the Programme. These opportunities and challenges highlight crucial elements for the economic, environmental, energy related, accessibility related, demographic and the territorial development of the North Sea Region.

In response to these elements the joint transnational strategy sets out the overall aim and objectives for the programme. The overall aim of the programme period is to make the North Sea Region a better place to live, work and invest in. Where transnational action is most likely to deliver towards this aim, objectives have been identified which will be delivered by 4 Priorities and 14 Areas of Intervention.

These four priorities are: 1. Building on our capacity for innovation 2. The sustainable management for our environment 3. Improving the accessibility of places in the NSR 4. Promoting sustainable and competitive communities

This chapter will describe the progress of programme implementation in relation to the priority level.

Gaps Analysis Following the fifth call for applications the Programme updated its gaps analysis. This analysis is a tool to provide background information about the current status of project development (annex 11). It gives an overview about topics and issues in relation to the programme’s 4 priorities, which are already addressed by the projects submitted so far and which are not yet addressed. The programme has approved 46 projects so far and the Operational Programme aims at approximately 50 projects altogether. After the fourth call

for applications, 70% of the ERDF funding and 74% of the Norwegian equivalent has been allocated.

Background and an explanation about the methodology behind can be found in the annual report for 2009.

The fifth call has changed the picture in terms of approved projects and performance of the areas of interventions significantly. For the first time project applications have been received for area of intervention 1.4 which remains now the only area of intervention underperforming. All other areas have now an average performance or are overperforming.

The outcomes of this analysis will be presented on priority level in the following chapter. The below table shows the progress made on priority level implementation by comparing the situations after the 4th and the 5th call.

Outcomes of gaps analysis Calls 1-4 Calls 1-5 Difference Areas of interventions 1.4 1.4 (0) not addressed Areas of interventions 1.1, 3.1, 3.2 none (-3) underperforming Areas of interventions 2.2, 3.3, 4.1 1.1, 2.2, 3.1, (+2) average performance 3.3, 4.1 Areas of interventions 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, (+1) overperforming 2.3, 2.4, 4.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.2, 4.3 4.2, 4.3 Number of projects 39 46 (+7) Number of applications 77 94 (+17) ERDF left P1: 15% 11% (-4) P2: 2% -2% (-4) P3: 76% 39% (-37) P4: 18% 17% (-1) Total: 30% 17% (-13) Topics strongly and 73 (58%) 80 (63%) +7 (+5%) partly addressed Topics strongly, partly 101 (80%) 105 (83%) +4 (+3%) and indirectly addressed

A graphical visualisation of the findings of the gaps analysis regarding the situation after the fourth call for application can be found in the annex number 11.

3.1 Priority 1 The development and introduction of new and improved products and services is crucial for the long-term competitiveness of an economy. Innovation can offer new economic opportunities for areas that are experiencing the challenges of economic restructuring. The North Sea Region has a strong reputation for R&D and innovation, although this is not uniformly distributed. It is crucial that we build on this base if we are to confront the challenges of the future and make the North Sea Region a better place in which to live, work and invest.

Priority 1 aims to promote initiatives that build on our capacity for innovation.

3.1.1 Achievement of targets and analysis of the progress Projects approved under Priority 1 In total, 12 projects are approved under priority 1. The projects Northern Maritime University (NMU) and European Regions for Innovative Productivity (ERIP) are operating under area of intervention 1.1 Building the innovation capacity of business.

The following projects are running under area of intervention 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks: e-clic (European Collaborative Innovation Centres for broadband media services), IFP (Innovative Foresight Planning for Business Development), NSSP (North Sea Screen Partnership), Power Cluster (Developing the North Sea Offshore Wind Power Cluster), Smart Cities, POYO (The Port is Yours) and ClimaFruit (Future proofing the North Sea berry fruit industry in times of climate change)

SKINT (North Sea Skills Integration and New Technologies), CCC (Creativity City Challenge) and North Sea Supply Connect are operating under area of intervention 1.3 Building the society’s and the institutional capacity for innovation.

Gaps analysis outcomes for priority 1 As an outcome of the gaps analysis for priority 1 after call 5, it was found that the number of projects expected by the Operational Programme in this priority has still been exceeded by one. Continuously, no projects have been approved under area of intervention 1.4 ‘Promoting the adoption and use of ICT applications’. After the approval of two project extensions under priority 1 in the fifth call during 2010, a budget of ERDF € 3.3 million is still available.

Information on the physical progress of Priority 1 Priority 1 Indicators The indicator table below shows the priority-specific indicators for priority 1, including the baselines and targets aggregated on project level. Furthermore, the figures achieved within 2009, 2010 and in total so far are displayed.

The data comprises information on the level of the 4 areas of interventions under priority 1. The project’s baselines and targets are to be measured against the programme aims, which reflect the aims as stated in the Operational Programme. Achieved indicators are monitored against the programme and project targets.

The below figures on achieved indicators are based on the periodical reports submitted by approved projects as of March and September 2010. In total 28 out of 46 projects reported on indicators in 2010, 9 projects reported on indicators in priority 1.

Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total

Priority 1 building on our capacity for innovation Output 311A new and improved transnational number 36 819 228 91 319 networks, alliances, collaborations, discussion fora and other outputs [1] Output 311B awareness raising activities on ICT number 1 529 399 6 405 applications Output 311C e-government services created number 0 105 4 18 22 Result 311D tools for transnational technology number 1 28 3 7 10 transfer adopted for RTD ex-change within and between clusters and target groups

Result 311E people in the NSR reached by number 150 141,900 268 1,528 1,796 specific awareness raising activities concerning tools for technology and knowledge transfer (male/female) [1]

Result 311F people in the NSR reached / number 150 31,050 60 56 116 provided access to new / improved services or other outputs concerning e-government (male/female) [1] Result 311G private and public investment in Euro 0 10,000,000 0 0 0 RTD triggered [1]

With every new approved project, the accumulated baselines and targets of the projects will change according to the new projects. The Operational Programme foresees a number of approximately 50 projects to be funded; 46 are approved currently.

Further analysis of the above indicator achievements will be presented in the below section regarding the qualitative analysis.

Remaining funds under Priority 1 In 2010, under the fifth two project extensions have been approved in priority 1. This led to a decrease of remaining available funding from 15 (situation after 4th call) to now 11.5 percent of the priority 1 ERDF being available. This equals to an amount of ERDF € 3.3m remaining.

Qualitative analysis of the priority 1 indicators Quantifiable priority 1 outputs that were produced by the 9 projects that reported on indicators in 2010 included new and improved transnational networks, alliances, discussion forums and other related outputs (91). These outputs reached a completion level of 24 to 66 percent in relation to the projects’ targets.

As high as 1,528 people in the NSR were reached by awareness raising activities regarding tools for technology and knowledge transfer.

105 e-government services are targeted to be produced, at this stage of implementation, 18 have been completed so far. Consequently, 56 people have gained access to such

services by the end of 2010. No private and public investment in RTD has been triggered so far, but €10 m is targeted for.

Analysis of the progress of the priority 1 implementation Many of the 12 projects that reported in the September 2010 round under Priority 1 are more than midway through implementation and therefore in a stage of active implementation. Methods that were developed jointly are now being applied across the partner regions and regional testing has led to first results on the transnational level.

In terms of the overarching aim, building capacity for innovation, two elements have become central. Firstly, the involvement of private partners and industry representatives has dominated much of the activities in this priority in terms of transferring results and promoting innovation. For instance, Smart Cities has been invited by the Flemish government in participating in the organisation and planning of the pre-conference event that launches the conference 'Lift off to Open Government' organised by the Belgian government as part of their EU presidency.

Secondly, projects are now deploying educational and training courses for their specific target groups, which have been developed by the partnerships in previous reporting rounds. This way, long term structures for training and development are being introduced that are able make a change regarding the region’s capacity for innovation. For instance, within the ERIP project, the project partners Newcastle University and Groningen University are collaborating on a joint postgraduate programme in Operations Management and Logistics.

Significant problems encountered and measures taken to overcome them No significant problems have been encountered in relation to priority 1.

3.2 Priority 2 The North Sea Region has a reputation as an area with a high quality environment. This is protected through the application of environmental standards and a culture, which places great store by this resource. Our environment is under pressure though from social and economic uses, as well as the implications of changing environmental conditions. We seek to manage these pressures in order to maintain the value of our environment for the benefit of future generations, and to achieve our aim of making the North Sea Region a better place in which to live, work and invest.

Priority 2 aims at initiatives that promote the sustainable management of our environment.

3.2.1 Achievements of targets and analysis of the progress Projects approved under priority 2 In total, 15 projects are approved under priority 2. Four projects are approved under area of intervention 2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal zone management. Those are BLAST (Bringing Land and Sea together), LNS (Living North Sea), SUSCOD (Sustainable coastal development in practise) and TIDE (Tidal River Development).

The project Ballast Water (North Sea Ballast Water Opportunity) is developing preventive and responsive measures to address acute and chronic marine pollution, under area of intervention 2.2.

CLIWAT (Adaptive and sustainable water management and protection of society and nature in an extreme climate), CPA (Climate Proof Areas), SAWA (Strategic Alliance for integrated Water Management Actions), Aquarius (The farmer as water manager under changing climatic conditions), DiPol (Impact of Climate Change on the quality of urban and coastal waters), MARE (Managing Adaptive Responses to changing flood risk in the North) as well as Biochar (Climate saving soils) are working under area of intervention 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate. Three projects are promoting environmentally responsible energy production practices

(area of intervention 2.4), those are enerCoast (BlueGreen Coastal Energy Community), C2CI (Cradle to Cradle Islands) and North Sea-SEP (North Sea Sustainable Energy Planning).

Gaps analysis outcomes for priority 2 As an outcome of the gaps analysis, it was found that priority 2 is over-performing in most areas of intervention and the number of projects to be approved as set out by the OP has been reached. Following the approval of four project extensions, the priority is now overallocated by € 535,000.

Information on the physical progress of Priority 2 Priority 2 Indicators The indicator table below shows the priority-specific indicators for priority 2, including the baselines as well as targets on project level. Furthermore, the figures achieved within 2009, 2010 and in total are displayed.

The data comprises information on the level of the 4 areas of interventions under priority 2. The project’s baselines and targets are to be measured against the programme aims, which reflect the aims as stated in the Operational Programme. Achieved indicators are monitored against the project and programme targets.

Output 312B new and improved contingency number 2 17 0 1 1 plans Output 312C new and improved common number 5 37 1 3 4 databases Output 312D new political agreements number 0 41 0 4 4 Output 312E new transnational model number 9 69 0 5 5 approaches Output 312F new and improved transnational number 19 145 1 33 34 network, discussion fora, technology transfer exchange scheme [1] Result 312G land /sea area subject to ha 120,001,000 1,431,986,357 11 5,184,096 5,184,107 transnational management tools, action plans, agreements, common databases, model approaches and pilots concerning risk prevention and management schemes [1] Result 312H coastline subject to transnational km 61,392 82,509 0 3,157 3,157 management tools, action plans, agreements, common databases, model approaches and pilots risk prevention and management schemes [1] in km Result 312I clean and renewable energy km 0 0 0 0 0 infrastructure provided

Result 312J increase of supply of clean and % renewable energy change 0 22 0 5 5 in kgoe 54

Result 312K new technologies / pilots to reduce number 13 94 0 6 6 pollution and manage risks transferred transnationally and implemented

Further analysis of the above indicator achievements will be presented in the below section regarding the qualitative analysis.

Remaining funds under Priority 2 In 2010, under the fifth call four projects extensions have been approved in priority 2. This led to a decrease of remaining available funding from 2 percent (situation after 4th call) still being available to the situation that priority 2 is now overallocated by 535.000 €.

Qualitative analysis of the priority 2 indicators Based on the nine projects have reported on priority 2, good progress has been made on the priority specific indicators. For example, four new or improved common database and five new transnational model approaches have been produced. In addition, 3157 km of coast line were subject to project activities concerning the sustainable management of our environment. This is however only 3 percent of the coastline that is targeted to be effected. 6 new technologies / pilots to reduce pollution and manage risks were transferred transnationally and implemented.

Analysis of the progress of the priority 2 implementation For the September 2010 reporting round, most projects have now reported more than on one occasion. Most of the projects are well underway in terms of implementation activities. For example, the Ballast Water Opportunity project, a large number of ballast water exchange and the issuance of exemptions from ballast water treatment were carried out by a working group coordinated the Netherlands Ministry of Transport and Public Works. The pilot test bed for Ballast Water Treatment systems attracted regional and non North Sea companies and national authorities. Furthermore, the project Biochar has opened the first national competence centre in the Netherlands, which now makes it possible for interested farmers and other parties to see demonstration fields and gain insight into the production and usage of biochar.

A number of projects have contributed to European policies and created potential impacts on a long-term basis. For instance, the implementation process of the EC Flood Directive (FD) has been supported by SAWA, MARE and DiPol. A draft Memorandum of Understanding has been presented to the North Sea Commission and discussions on its implementation have been started. The Memorandum will be based on the outcomes of the Climate Proof Areas pilots, including recommendations on climate adaptation, process evaluation as well as ecologic, economical and social aspects. In addition, MARE has established various links to policy development programmes, and has become a pilot in the areas of Flood Safety and New building & Redevelopment for the Dutch national “Delta Programme”. Links have also been made to the UK Floods and Water Act 2010.

Significant problems encountered and measures taken to overcome them No significant problems have been encountered in relation to priority 2.

3.3 Priority 3 Promoting better levels of accessibility and connectivity is crucial to achieving the wider objectives of this Programme. This includes the access of places for people and for the movement of goods. In speaking of accessibility we are not only thinking of physical infrastructure but also of the logistics technologies and procedures that are so important in

enabling, and maximising, the efficient movement of goods and people. Through transnational cooperation actions we aim to improve the accessibility of places in the North Sea Region in order that this delivers tangible benefits to the residents and firms based in the region, and makes the Region a better place in which to live, work and invest.

Priority 3 aims to promote initiatives that improve the accessibility of places in the NSR.

3.3.1 Achievements of targets and analysis of the progress Projects approved under Priority 3 In total, 11 projects are approved under priority 3, 7 of which have been approved under the 5th call in 2010 (these are: Cruise Gateway, iTransfer, Green Airports, LO-PINOD, Food Port, CNSS and E-harbours).

Within area of intervention 3.1, CARE-North (Carbon responsible transport strategies for the North Sea Area), CRUISE GATEWAY (Towards sustainable growth of cruise shipping in the NSR), iTransfer (Innovative TRANsport Solutions for Fjords Estuaries and Rivers) and GSA (Green Sustainable Airports) promote regional accessibility strategies.

StratMos (Motorways of the Seas Strategic Demonstration Project), LO-PINOD (Logistics Optimisation for Ports Intermodality: Network, Opportunities, Development) and Food Port (Connecting Food Port Regions - Between and Beyond) are operating under area of intervention 3.2 to promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors. Four projects are running under area of intervention 3.3 to promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions; those are Dryport (A modal shift in practice), NS FRITS (North Sea Freight and Intelligent Transport Solutions), CLEAN NORTH SEA SHIPPING (Competitive Marine Transport Services AND Reduction of Emission – a North Sea Model) and E-Harbours (E-Logistics in NSR Harbour Cities).

Gaps analysis outcomes for priority 3 Whereas priority 3 was under-performing in terms of projects approved and before call 5 in 2010, the priority has since then caught up significantly as a consequence of targeted communication towards NSR stakeholders. For the priority, 11 projects have been now approved. None of the areas of intervention is underperforming anymore, in fact, area of intervention 3.2 is now over-performing. Half of the ERDF € 30m that remained unallocated prior to call 5 have been allocated through the 7 newly approved projects and one project extension. This leaves 39 percent of the priority’s budget.

Information on the physical progress of Priority 3 Priority 3 Indicators The indicator table below shows the priority-specific indicators for priority 3, including baselines and targets. The data comprises information on the level of the 3 areas of interventions under priority 3.

Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Priority 3 improving the accessibility of places in the NSR Output 313A transnational integrated / number 0 24 0 4 4 implementation strategies Result 313B land / sea area subject to ha 100 861 0 482 482 transnational management tools, action plans, agreements, common databases, model approaches and pilots concerning accessibility strategies logistics solutions [1] Result 313C new logistics or multimodal number 0 14 0 4 4 technologies / pilots transferred transnationally and implemented Result 313D technology centres and number 0 21 0 2 2 transnational databases helping transnational exchange [1] Result 313E transnational transport corridor and km 0 10,003 0 0 0 links between urban and rural areas subject of reduced travel time (time- distance minutes over 100km) by more sustainable transport

With every new approved project, the accumulated baselines and targets of the projects will change according to the new projects. The Operational Programme foresees approximately 50 projects to be funded, 46 are funded currently.

Further analysis of the above indicator achievements will be presented in the below section regarding the qualitative analysis.

Remaining funds under Priority 3 In 2010, under the fifth call seven additional projects and one project extension have been approved in priority 3. This led to a decrease of remaining available funding from 76 (situation after 4th call) to now 39 percent of the priority 3 ERDF still being available. This equals to an amount of € 15.4m remaining.

Qualitative analysis of the priority 3 indicators Three projects reported on indicators in priority 3 during 2010 and achieved first progress in terms of the priority specific indicators. For example, 482 ha of land / sea area were subject to actions promoting the improvement of accessibility of places in the NSR. In addition, four new logistics or multimodal technologies / pilots were transferred transnationally and implemented in 2010. Two technology centres and transnational databases helping transnational exchange in the context of improving accessibility were established.

Analysis of the progress of the priority 3 implementation Overall, project activities are running in various stages in this priority. For the project Stratmos, reporting for the fifth time, results are now forthcoming as an outcome of project activity. For example, creating new networks and strategic logistical links are well underway. An important part of the initiative is that it is pursues the possibility of logistics hubs in the High North to benefit from the newly established “Partnership for Transport and Logistics” within the “Northern Dimension” which is a cooperation between EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland. In discussions with the Ministry of Transport in Russia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway, the project idea may become a pilot project within the Northern Dimension Programme.

Some good examples of transnational cooperation in an international context can be seen in practice. For example, the Care-North project was represented at the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, displaying car-sharing theme as part of the project’s activities. Cross fertilization between the projects in this priority has also been a particular feature. For example, the Stratmos, NS Frits and Dryport projects have been meeting to discuss areas of mutual interest and possibilities for joint co-operation. Furthermore, the joint Dryport partnership agreed upon a statement towards the European Commission with regard to the TEN-T revision as a follow-up of an earlier response on the new white book for transport. The core comment in this reaction was that Dyports will be mentioned as important in the proposed core hubs thinking. TEN-T must not only connect major European areas but shall also deal with regional development.

Significant problems encountered and measures taken to overcome them No significant problems have been encountered in relation to priority 3.

3.4 Priority 4 The communities that make up the North Sea Region are all experiencing pressures of change. This takes different forms depending upon the particular mix of demographic, economic and environmental drivers in each case. Issues of inclusion, congestion and demand for land, rise to the fore in places that are attracting new populations, whilst for

those that are losing jobs, services and population the challenge is one of finding mechanisms that stem this tide. Many of these issues are best tackled at the local and regional level, yet the commonality of these issues and the functional interconnections of communities in the region present a strong argument for supplementary efforts built upon transnational cooperation.

In this respect this priority seeks to create more sustainable communities through developing radical approaches to the pressures that they face. In the light of the drivers patterns of structural change it is vital for the NSR to apply a holistic approach to the sustainable development of regions and ensure vibrant communities that are attractive places in which to live and work.

Priority 4 aims at initiatives that promote sustainable and competitive communities.

3.4.1 Achievements of targets and analysis of the progress Projects approved under Priority 4 In total, 8 projects are approved under priority 4. Two projects are tackling the needs of areas in decline (area of intervention 4.1): DC Noise (Demographic Change – New Opportunities in Shrinking Europe) and Vital Rural Area.

The following projects are operating under area of intervention 4.2 promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas: MP4 (Making Places Profitable – Public and Private open spaces), WfG (Waterways for Growth – Sustainable Development of Inland Waterways in the North Sea Region), CA! (Coast Alive!) and SURF (Sustainable Urban Fringes).

ANSWER (A North Sea Way to Energy-Efficient Regions) and Build with CaRe (Mainstreaming Energy efficiency in the built environment) are working with area of intervention 4.3 promoting energy efficiency in settlements.

Gaps analysis outcomes for priority 4 As an outcome of the gaps analysis, it was found that priority 4 is doing well in terms of fields to be addressed for most of its areas of intervention. Of the nine anticipated projects, eight have been approved so far. One project extension was approved in the 5th call under priority 4. With ERDF € 4m unallocated equalling 17 percent of the priority’s budget, sufficient room for additional activities is available.

Information on the physical progress of Priority 4 Priority 4 Indicators The table below shows the specific indicators for priority 4, including baselines and targets on aggregated project level. Furthermore, the figures achieved within 2009, 2010 and in total are displayed.

The data comprises information on the level of the 3 areas of interventions under priority 4. The below figures on achieved indicators are based on the periodical reports submitted by approved projects as of March and September 2010. In total 28 out of 46 projects reported on indicators in 2010, 7 projects reported on indicators in priority 4.

Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Priority 4 promoting sustainable and competitive communities Output 314A transnational integrated / number 0 44 6 5 11 implementation strategies Result 314B new technologies, services, pilots number 2 341 7 137 144 transferred transnationally and implemented [1] Result 314C area in decline subject of ha 0 1,810,310 1,809,998 300 1,810,298 management tools, strategies, (tbc) initiatives [1] Result 314D expanding areas subject of ha 0 28 0 0 0 management tools, strategies, initiatives [1] Output 314E transnational energy-efficiency number 0 18 4 5 9 campaigns implemented Result 314F brownfield land re-used ha 0 0 0 0 0 Result 314H people from target groups in the number 0 73,790 378 2,350 2,728 NSR reached / provided access to new / improved services or other outputs in priority 4 (male/ female)

Further analysis of the above indicator achievements will be presented in the below section regarding the qualitative analysis.

Remaining funds under Priority 4 In 2010, under the fifth call one project extension has been approved in priority 4. This led to a small decrease of remaining available funding from 18 (situation after 3rd call) to now 17 percent of the priority 4 ERDF still being available. This equals to an amount of ERDF € 4m remaining.

Qualitative analysis of the priority 4 indicators The 7 projects that reported on priority 4 indicators have achieved measurable outputs and results. 5 additional transnationally integrated implementation strategies have been produced adding up to 11 in total and as much as 137 technologies, services and pilots have been transferred and implemented in 2010, resulting in 2350 additional people having access to such services.

In addition, five transnational energy efficiency campaigns have been implemented. This now totals to 9 such campaigns of 18 that are targeted.

Analysis of the progress of the priority 4 implementation Most of the eight projects that reported in the September 2010 round under Priority 4 have moved from start-up towards development and implementation phase. The grounds were prepared previously so that pilots and investments are being carried currently. Thus, the centre of activities lies on implementing diverse pilot solutions across the region regarding the project’s specific fields of actions, such as demographic change, rural empowerment, public space maintenance and energy efficient buildings. Implementation approaches are aiming to enable businesses and communities to move towards competitiveness and sustainability.

The past reporting round has seen the transnational strategies being put into practice. For example, experiences and work developed through Waterways for Growth is providing input to a project commissioned by the German Ministry of Transport (BMVBS), which focuses on concepts and models for the future organisation, staffing and financial management for improving water tourism in Germany.

Projects under priority 4 are starting to be heard on the political level and have continuously worked within publicity and contributed to national debates. First results and publications have led to contact and generated support by European level institutions such as the Committee of the Regions and the European Commission. During this reporting period the North Sea Commission adopted the Build with CaRe policy statement. It will now be forwarded to the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR). The policy statement was also used in a revised version to answer the EU consultation on the Energy Strategy 2020.

Significant problems encountered and measures taken to overcome them No significant problems have been encountered in relation to priority 4.

4. Technical Assistance

The Technical Assistance (TA) costs reported under the IVB programme in 2010 are presented in appendix 5. Here the audited statement of accounts for 2010 is presented.

The IVB North Sea Region programme was approved in October 2007 and 2010 will represent the 4th year of operation. In 2010 the TA costs reported under the IVB amounted to € 2,043,047 before the audit costs. This is significantly lower than the TA budget set aside for 2010, which was € 2,887,515. In relative terms, the budget spent is approximately 71 %.

Technical Assistance 2010 for the IVB Programme

Table 1 EURO TA budget TA costs incurred Difference % budget 2010 2010 2010 spent Staff 1.300.000 1.183.822 116.178 91% Office/Meetings/ Equipment etc. 313.000 246.536 66.464 79% Travel/Accommodation 166.000 169.646 -3.646 102% IT 52.000 34.140 17.860 66% Conferences/Seminars 180.045 112.799 67.246 63% Publication/Information 66.000 33.726 32.274 51% Information and activity support 530.470 214.452 316.018 40% Evaluation 200.000 1.696 198.304 1% Cluster 80.000 46.230 33.770 58% Priority 5 - total 2.887.515 2.043.047 844.468 71%

Notes: 1. The budget presented reflects the budget approved at MC 6 (14-15 April 2010, Groningen in the Netherlands)

Looking at the individual budget headings it can be seen that all items are well within the headings and in line with the anticipated expenditure level apart from the heading “Travel and accommodation” where a minor exceeding of the budget can be noted. This significant under-spend can, to a large extent, be explained by two headings: “Information and activity support” and “Evaluations”.

The take-up of funds from the “Information and activity support”, i.e. the contact point network is still slow. This was also the case in the IIIB programme. So far, the take up of

funds under this heading is only 40 % of the funds allocated to 2010 but it should be noted that the budget of this heading for 2010 includes unclaimed funds from 2007-2009. This fact should be borne in mind when looking at the expenditure incurred here. It is still the impression that the low take up of funds indicates a slow claiming procedure rather than a low activity level in the contact point network.

As for the heading “Evaluation” only 1 % of the budget of € 200,000 allocated to 2010 has been spent. This, however, gives a somehow misleading picture of the activities carried out in this respect. The evaluation working group set up has already made considerable progress including initiating the tender procedure and the slow take up of funds reflects the fact that the tender process has not yet been completed.

The two headings mentioned represent more than 60 % of the underspend for 2010.

As for the expenditure for staff 91 % of the budget was spent. This underspend is partly the result of the adjustments made at the last budget review in April 2010 in which € 65,000 was added to this heading for 2010 following the underspend from 2007-2009.

The explanation for the underspend of 21 % which can be noted for Office etc. is also, to a large extent, a result of the adjustments made at the last budget review in April 2010 in which € 53,000 was added to this heading for 2010 following the underspend from 2007- 2009.

Likewise, the underspend of 34 % which can be noted for IT is also, to a large extent, a result of the adjustments made at the last budget review in April 2010 in which approximately € 10,000 was added to this heading for 2010 following the underspend from 2007-2009.

As for the amount spent on publication, there is a significant underspend as only 51 % of the budget of € 66,000 has been spent. The spending on publicity throughout 2010, but in particular the second half of the year, was conservative, based on awareness of upcoming

events and projects for which there was not a clear understanding of budget and financial implications at the time. As it turned out, that some of the costs will be postponed to the 2011 this led to an underspend for 2010.

Looking at the expenses incurred for the cluster activities, it can be seen that € 46,230 or 58 % of the budget of € 80,000 for 2010 has been spent. If, however, the overhead costs of € approximately € 20,000 for the cluster facilitator was added to the € 33,770 incurred for the cluster facilitator in 2010, then the actual underspend would be approximately € 14,000.5

As in previous years, the expenditure for TA in 2010 has been well within the available budget. This reflects an overarching policy in the joint technical secretariat of economising as much as possible. In line with the previous practice of reallocating over- and underspend within the same budget headings, the underspend of € 844,468 for 2010 has been reallocated for the remaining budget period. The funding brought forward will enable the joint technical secretariat to continue functioning at its current level until the end of 2014. Without the underspending brought forward, the joint technical secretariat would face a significant reduction in staff and activities in 2014.

The only item deviating significantly from the budget set aside is the Contact Point Network where it can be seen that the take up of funds by is very slow. Only 32 % of the budget set aside for 2009 has actually been claimed by the end of 2009. This could indicate a low activity level in the Contact Point Network but, based on the joint technical secretariat’s regular contact with the individual contact points, it is much more likely that the low take up of funds can be put down to administrative delays in the claiming procedure.

5 In the budget specification for 2010 for the cluster a budget of € 50,000 was set aside to cover salary and overhead for the cluster facilitator.

Of the total budget of € 14,853,895 for the entire programming period, the total TA amount spent by the end of 2010 was € 4,587,749 or approximately 31 % of the total TA budget available.

5. Information and Publicity

Background The aim of communications in the North Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 is to strengthen the results and outcomes of the Programme.

Communications is a business tool which if used efficiently will give leverage to the content aspects of the Programme. Communications should be regarded as integral to the Programme as well as the underlying projects of the Programme. It has significant potential strategic added value.

An underlying aim is to establish the Programme as good practice in content as well as communications in territorial cooperation and ERDF and in doing so strengthening the overall outlook of the Programme. The effort stretches from the previous programming periods over the current period and onwards into the future 2014-2020 programming period. It is crucial to have a long term strategic perspective on communications to exploit its full potential.

The Programme is well established as strong in communications and communications staff members are invited to speak on communication on numerous occasions annually. This strengthens not only communications but also helps to raise awareness of the Programme and its subsequent projects and results and outcomes as such.

The professionalised approached to communication in which a coherent and consistent approach is top priority, including the general structure as well as strategic aspects of communications, continue to pay dividend. It also reflects in the graphical identity, logo and all other relevant aspects of communications.

Communications 2007-2013 and onwards to 2014-2020 With a good number of projects well into implementation and some close to finished (the first projects to close under 2007-2013 programming period in the North Sea Region Programme will come in mid 2011), there is a major shift in the work of the Programme and its subsequent communications.

The shift has to do with moving away from raising awareness and onto showing the results and outcomes. It is about moving from a descriptive perspective of what the Programme will achieve to highlighting what has actually been done. This shift is anticipated and has been part of the Communication Plan of the Programme since its first draft.

The shift in focus related to communications is a question of change of perspective and focus and involves all staff members and people connected to the Programme in any way. It is process which is underway.

Regarding future transnational co-operation there is awareness of the challenges to communicate concrete added value of transnational programmes and discussions are ongoing since about two years on how to best facilitate this. The joint technical secretariat has been following the different discussions relating to communicating transnational added value and continues to take part in different events and fora in which this addressed.

About the Communication Plan 2007-2013 The Communication Plan 2007-2013 emphasizes web based sources as a main channel of communication, the crucial role of effective project communications and the necessity to be long term oriented and consequent in communications on order to be successful. It points to new media as an integrated part of the plan and that a print on demand principle should be implemented.

The plan emphasize that communication is content in its own right and that the acceptance of this has implications on how communications of the Programme is approached and

structured, i.e. it has the potential to influence the future prospects and quality of the Programme.

The emphasis of the Communication Plan as stated in the document is on the two areas of communication most relevant for the Programme: to widely spread general information about the Programme, i.e. to inform about the Programme; to spread specific and targeted stories about its accomplishments, i.e. to promote the results and outcomes of the Programme.

It is concluded that the North Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 will go well beyond the minimum requirements to communicate the work, results and outcomes of the Programme.

Project communications and publicity for the projects The projects are the main message carrier of the Programme in the participating countries, particularly at regional and local level, and often at national level. Raising awareness of the importance of communications is a key step in order to improve overall communications of the projects and in the end the Programme as such.

Communications is a separate work package since the Fourth Call for Applications, securing that projects consider communications as integral to the work carried out. All projects under the Programme have to submit a Communication Plan.

The joint technical secretariat addresses communications at every event arranged by the Programme, i.e. Thematic Events, Lead Partner Seminars and Annual Conferences, thus leading by example and constantly reminding stakeholders to put focus on communications.

At Lead Beneficiary No 4 held on 12-13 October 2010 in Bremen, sessions on project and Programme cooperation as well as on new media was held, using external expertise to give leverage to the messages.

Publicity Tools, Materials and Events News reels of Annual Conferences and New Media The Annual Conference of the Programme 2010 was filmed and edited on site and subsequently aired in the evening of the two days. It was also made available on the web. A blog enabling comments and feedback to the ongoing event was also connected to the video links. This was also made for the 2007-2009 events and is planned for the 2011 conference.

The website The website has on average circa 1,200 unique visitors per week, with peaks of around 1,600 when Calls for Applications open and close. Detailed statistics on the use of the website by stakeholders is collected and monitored closely as part of the on-going effort to revise and update the interface of the website.

Programme communications is primarily web based and ongoing revision and regular updates of the style and outlook of the website is crucial to ensure relevance and user- friendliness.

The project section which was implemented in 2009 is becoming increasingly valued by stakeholders and is now a key feature of the website interface and project-programme interaction related to communications.

The website is linked to the different databases the Programme has and one example of integration is that basic information from the electronic application form automatically is transferred to the project section to be displayed on the web. This saves significant time and also secures that the correct information is displayed.

As the Programme matures and there is a need to aggregate and archive information and material from the projects, the project section will show even more value – this also being a fundamental part of the idea behind the project section from the very start. The integration of the database and the website will provide ample opportunity to collect and aggregate data from the projects as the Programme progresses.

The full value of the shift to the all digital environment has yet to be seen, but the growing integration of the website, the new database, application procedures including monitoring clearly indicates that there is value added with each step of the integration. Data and information can be extracted and shared between structures on a level which was not possible before, providing substantial potential value for evaluation of work and results and related. The integration also provides cost efficiency over time.

About the Project Lifecycle Information is continuously added to the project section and updates are regular. User statistics on the website shows a constant increase in use and time spent on the project lifecycle and it is clear that it represents an important feature for stakeholders in order to find quick and relevant information related to specific stages of implementation.

About the Project Section As stated above the project section is quickly becoming a key communications and publicity tool, and will increasingly be for the future, by ensuring that the Programme receives quick and relevant information about the progress of the projects for further communication on the Programme website.

It is a multi level structure in which both the joint technical secretariat and the projects play a role to enter information to improve the quality of the section and the information in it. Basic information about projects will automatically be extracted from the database and put into the project section. The full potential of the system will be realised when all projects make use of the system to share information about news and events, media and PR.

Online Forms Since the fourth Call for Applications in 2009 the application procedure is web based, with printed forms and materials used as back-up.

All applications and drafted and finalised by means of the web based application form online and when the application is finalised and sent to the joint technical secretariat, it is also locked for changes. All applications are formalised in signed and sealed printed versions.

The online procedure has significantly streamlined and simplified the practical procedures surrounding the applications. There are also a number of added values to the online procedure, such as the automatic transfer of key project data to the programme website project section, which is done once a project has been approved by the Steering Committee.

Events Background Conferences and seminars are an important tool linked to publicising and highlighting the results and outcomes of the Programme and its projects.

There are several events arranged by the joint technical secretariat annually, such as Thematic Seminars and the Annual Conference. Staff members also attend and speak at a number of events every year. Furthermore the Programme exhibits at several conferences annually, in particular at events related to regional development and events which address topics of strategic significance for the Programme.

Projects are encouraged to participate and arrange conferences in their respective fields of work as relevant.

Joint Transnational Conference 2011 The Joint Transnational Conference 2011 will be held 15-16 September in Katowice Poland. The idea was conceived and matured in late 2009 and 2010 and preparations were initiated in mid 2010.

The conference will showcase the added value of transnational cooperation and its results to date, as well as contribute to the ongoing discussions on ETC and transnational cooperation in the future.

All thirteen transnational programmes are participating and have been asked to contribute to the financing of the event, on a pro-rata basis. 600 participants will join for the conference over two days and it will be possible to follow the event online via web streaming.

The North Sea Region Programme is taking a very active part in the event, contributing with coordination on one of the content themes of the event and also coordinating over-all communications for the event. Communications is one of the three main working areas in preparation for event and represents circa 2/3 of the conference budget.

The Annual Conference and General Assembly 2010 The North Sea Region Programme and North Sea Commission Joint Annual Conference and General Assembly 2010 was held in June in Stavanger, Norway. 250 participants attended the event, which took place over two days.

The theme of the event was ‘North Sea Region 2020’. The event was held in cooperation with the North Sea Commission. The event featured speakers from the European Commission as well as high level speakers from relevant institutions and educational organisations.

A key feature of the event was the initial thematic and topical discussions on project clustering – the North Sea Region Programmes response to draw and capitalise on the

collected learnings in the projects. Response was positive and intense discussions on the best way to facilitate clustering took place.

Lead Beneficiary seminars One Lead Beneficiary seminar was held in 2010, in Bremen, Germany. The seminar was a joint Lead Beneficiary seminar and Clustering seminar. Around 90 people participated in the respective parts of the seminar, with some overlaps of the audiences.

Thematic events and conferences One thematic event was held in 2010, on Communications, 2-3 December in Billund, Denmark. There was also preparatory seminar for the fifth call in January in Antwerp, Belgium.

Eight events specifically connected to control aspects of the Programme were held in 2010 (two in Germany and Netherlands respectively and one each in Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden), one was arranged by a project of the Programme and the rest were coordinated at the National level but arranged by the joint technical secretariat.

First Level Control seminars In 2010 the programme continued with running a series of national 1st level control seminars in the participating countries in the programme. Whereas the Lead Beneficiary Seminars focus on broader programme themes and have Lead Beneficiaries as the primary target group, the 1st level control seminars focus on issues related to 1st level control and financial management. The target group is not limited to Lead Beneficiaries. At the 1st level control seminars all beneficiaries and their first level controllers are invited to discuss and to learn from each other how to prepare for the two annual first level control checks. In general, the seminars have proven very helpful based on the feedback the programme receives from the evaluation of the events. A crucial factor in this connection is that at virtually all the seminars we have the national second level controller and a representative from the ERDF responsible ministry available at the seminars helping with providing guidance on national eligibility rules.

In 2010 seminars were held in:

1. Brussels, Belgium, January 2010 2. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 2010 3. Malmö, Sweden, September 2010 4. Hamburg, Germany, September 2010 5. Bergen, Norway, October 2010 6. Viborg, Denmark, November 2010

Open Days 2010 The Programme participated in the Open Days 2010 in several ways, not least with a stand in CoR building along with other ETC programmes.

As the only Programme, North Sea Region Programme then invited projects to participate and exhibit at the Programme stand. 15 projects attended and took part in the exhibition during the Open Days. The Programme held a small reception for the projects in the evening of the last day of the exhibition.

The joint technical secretariat also chaired the only Open Days workshop on communications, a session which was successful and came as a result of a cooperation between the joint technical secretariat and DG Regio. The workshop was a success and well worth the effort, but the effort to participate in the CoR exhibition did not pay dividend. The cost to take part, shipping of materials and working time put in to arrange the project participation did not pay off in number of people visiting the stand or addressing the projects.

Inform Network The Programme has been participating actively in the Inform Network for communication officers connected to work with DG Regio since the network was formed, the last years also in active roles as speakers and moderators in different sessions.

Inform is a twice yearly event which typically takes place in Brussels, Belgium. The precedent to arrange the event in Brussels was changed in 2010 when it was decided to arrange Inform No 6 in Funchal, Madeira (after an offer to host from the Portuguese).

The joint technical secretariat then joined forces with the Northern Periphery Programme and sent a letter raising concerns about the choice of location, taking travel time, costs and sustainability aspects into account, i.e. a basic cost-benefit analysis. The letter was disregarded by the Commission.

The Programme was invited to speak and moderate and thus participated in the event. The concerns regarding the location was again raised during the meeting, but was not taken into account or discussed.

Although the event has significant value as a platform to discuss and further elaborate communications in the Community and under different programmes, there is a need to make cost-benefit assessments for participation at events and conferences. It was decided to evaluate future participation not only based on the topics for the event, but also the location.

TV Documentary series on air The long awaited TV Documentary series was aired on Danish television in 2010. Significant efforts were made prior to the premier to engage the Brussels community in the communication of the event (starting in 2008 and throughout 2009), with very little result.

6. Mid-term assessment of communications

Background to assessment and connection to the on-going evaluation As stated in the Commission Regulation (EC) No 1828/2006, article 3(2), the Annual Report 2010 should encompass an assessment of publicity measures undertaken related to ‘results of the information and publicity measures in terms of visibility and awareness of operational programmes and of the role played by the Community (…)’.

The North Sea Region Programme has - as the only confirmed transnational programme to date - decided to make communications one of the three main pillars of the on-going evaluation of the Programme itself.

In doing so the Programme will go far beyond the stated requirement in the regulation to assess and evaluate the Communication Plan, underlying strategies and implemented measures to better understand and improve communications for the future. The outcomes will also be a key input for the design of communications for the coming programming period, i.e. 2014-2020.

As part of the on-going evaluation, communications in the Programme will be assessed and evaluated as an integral part of the Programme, which is the only way to understand and draw real conclusions on the relevance and effectiveness of the different communication measures carried out under the Programme and the subsequent projects.

The on-going evaluation will be carried out by external expertise with the assistance of relevant joint technical secretariat staff members. More information on the evaluation can be found in section 2.7 of the Annual Report 2010, under the headline Monitoring and Evaluation.

Three main areas of communications will be assessed and evaluated as part of the abovementioned evaluation, with the following timeline:

• Programme – Project Communication: o Phase one: December 2011 – June 2012 - Interim Report o Phase two: April 2013 – December 2013 -Final Report

• Communication Measures: o Phase one: January 2012 – December 2012 - Interim Report o Phase two: October 2013 – June 2014 - Final Report

• Programme Visibility: o Phase one: April 2011 – December 2011 - Final Report

Mid-term assessment of communications according to regulation The only real value to communications lies in how it supports the results and outcomes of the organisation or business it is connected to.

With 80 per cent of funds allocated to 46 projects with a minimum target of 50, the face value conclusion would have to be that the efforts to raise awareness of the Operational Programme and the Community regarding the North Sea Region Programme has been successful.

The Communication Plan is the main document referring to communications of the Programme. The Communication Plan for the North Sea Region Programme was the first among all transnational programmes to be formally approved by the Commission in early 2008.

Communications in the Programme is web based and all relevant information necessary to get informed of and apply for a project under the Programme has been available (to read and to download) online since before the current programming period came into implementation. This includes all relevant regulations, the Operational Programme, all Fact Sheets, Guidance Documents and any other supporting documents including the full Communication Plan of the Programme.

All other documents and materials needed to meet the formal requirements in the regulations and the requirements of the Programme are also available online, i.e. a full set of logos, the EU-emblem, a guidance document, a template for the plaque, etc.

Since the communications is web based, a satisfactory assessment of the website by the Programme stakeholders would support the indicative face value assessment that awareness and role of the Community in relation to the Programme is good. To assess and secure effectiveness of the North Sea Region Programme website, a survey was carried out 2010 regarding the website of the Programme and the information available on it.

The evaluation clearly shows that the stakeholders of the Programme are pleased with the website, as more than 90 per cent of the responses were said to be ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with the website of the Programme.

About the website survey and relevance for communications assessment The online user survey was filled out by 106 respondents. The survey was online on the Programme website for about six weeks, from 16 April to 31 May 2010. According to Google Analytics, the website had between 1,150 and 1,300 visits per week in the time the survey was online, out of which 700 to 800 were unique visitors. The geographical coverage comprised all Programme countries, with most visits being counted from Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. About 86 per cent of all visitors were located in the North Sea Region.

The evaluation of the survey provided valuable feedback concerning the current structure and functionalities as well as the future development of the website. A central part of the survey was to get feedback on the level of satisfaction about the website – both in general and in relation to specific issues such as navigation, accessibility of information and up-to- dateness. Also, the use of social media and networks among the respondents was explored.

The outcomes of the survey show that the general level of satisfaction among the users is very high, with 91 per cent of the respondents being “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the Programme website. The navigation of the website and the accessibility of information are not perceived as a problem – the users usually find, what they are looking for.

The overall perception of the respondents is that the website is up-to-date, with 98% choosing either “very up-to-date” or “acceptable”. Social media are widely used among the users of the Programme website: Around 40 per cent are active on LinkedIn and Facebook. This picture clearly shows the high relevance of social media in the context of Programme communications.

Update of Communication Plan and connection to Programme Evaluation Any (major) revision of the Communication Plan will take place as a result of the on-going evaluation, in which evaluation of communication is also a key part.

The mid-term of assessment of communications indicates that implementation follows the plan and that relevance and effectiveness is satisfactory.

Communication Indicators The Communication Plan 2007-2013 has a number of indicators for measuring the performance of the plan. Details can be found in the table below:

Indicator Output Result Target 2008 2009 2010 Indicators Indicators Implementation Aggregated N° of minimum Minimum: Minimum: Websites: 26 Websites: 39 Websites: 46 project required N° of 1 per Logos: 26 Logos: 39 Logos: 26 indicators on communication websites communication Others: N/A Others: N/A Others: N/A publicity tools N° of project tool per project N° of optional logos communication N° of Optional: tools promotional Preferably 1 materials per N° of communication PowerPoint tool per project presentations N° of project case studies N° of project picture libraries Optional: N° of project posters N° of project newsletters N° of project DVDs N° of plaques N° of press releases N° of other tools Visual Identity N° of visual N° of 1 document 1 N/A N/A identity implemented documents visual identities Website N° of published N° of 1 website Website: 1 Website: 1 Website: 1 pages users/visitors Visitors: Visitors: Visitors: > N° Databases N° of 27,423 57,000 55,000 N° of DB registered records users N° of pages views Publications: Programme N° of copies N° of copies 1 OP OP: 1 OP: N/A OP: N/A Documents printed distributed 8 Annual AR: 1 AR: 1 AR: 1 N° of versions N° of copies Reports FR: N/A FR: N/A FR: N/A created downloaded 1 Final Report from the website Guidance N° of copies N° of copies 1 Programme Created: 1 Created: 1 Created: 1 Documents printed distributed Manual Distributed, Distributed, Distributed, N° of versions N° of copies 4 other total: > 1,500 total: > 2,000 total: > 8,00 created downloaded guidance Downloaded: Downloaded: Downloaded: from the documents N/A N/A N/A website and PowerPoint presentations Promotional N° of copies N° of copies Yearly version N/A N/A N/A Documents printed distributed of Annual N° of versions N° of copies Report created downloaded 1 Programme from the Leaflet, website updated as relevant

Promotional N° of versions N° of copies Depending on & conference created distributed the events materials: Promotional N° of copies N° of copies 1 case study N/A N/A N/A materials printed distributed per project

N° of versions N° of copies created downloaded from the website Conference N° of copies N° of copies Depending on N/A N/A N/A materials printed distributed the events N° of versions N° of copies created downloaded from the website Graphical N° of versions N° of 1 complete 1 1 1 Identity and created graphical identity N° distributed: N° N° guideline guidelines guideline, N/A distributed: distributed: distributed updated as N/A N/A relevant Programme N° of contact N° of contact At least 7 bodies, points points national beneficiaries, established contact points stakeholders Monitoring N° Databases N° of 1 implemented 1 database 1 database 1 database system Databases database Users: N/A Users: N/A Users: N/A implemented N° of DB users N° of general statistical tables European flag N° of times EU Period the 1 week per 1 week 1 week 1 week flag is flown Managing year Authority is flying the flag Launch event N° of events N° of invited 1 1 1 1 people N° of attendees Annual N° of events N° of invited 1 per year 1 1 1 Conference people Open Invitation Open Open N° of Invitation Invitation attendees 410 315 230

Lead N° of events N° of invited Initially 2 per 1 2 1 Beneficiary people year Invited: N/A Invited: N/A Invited: N/A Seminars N° of Participated: Participated: Participated: attendees > 120 > 180 > 80 Project N° of events N° of invited Minimum of 4 2 1 2 development people (total) Invited: N/A Invited: N/A Invited: N/A events N° of Participated: Participated: Participated: attendees > 200 > 80 > 200 Thematic & N° of events N° of invited >2 thematic 1 2 1 Training people events Invited: N/A Invited: N/A Invited: N/A events N° of Participated: > Participated: Participated: attendees > 100 > 150 > 20 Presence at N° of events N° of Depending on > 30 > 30 > 30 events meetings the events and attended staff capacity

Appendices

Appendix 1 Participants at Monitoring Committee in 2010 Appendix 2 Participants at Steering Committee in 2010 Appendix 3 National Contact Points in 2010 Appendix 4 Annual Employer Statement 2010 Appendix 5 Independent Auditors’ Report - Audited Statement of Accounts 2010 and the Statement of Accounts 2010 Appendix 6 List of Approved Projects in 2010 Appendix 7 Overview of policy frameworks and funding programmes relevant for the North Sea Region Appendix 8 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) 2010 Appendix 9 Detailed Environmental Indicator List 2010 Appendix 10 Detailed Project Indicator 2010 Appendix 11 GAPs Analysis after Steering Committee (SC) No. 5 Appendix 12 List of Projects and their Impact on Equal Opportunities 2010 Appendix 13 Project Implementation Report No. 1 – March 2010 Appendix 14 Project Implementation Report No. 2 – September 2010 Appendix 15 National Contact Point activities in 2010

88 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

Membership of the Monitoring Committee in 2010

CHAIR – MEETING 6/7 Kaja Korgaard* Member Fiona Wieland* Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Regional Policy Directorate General of Spatial Policy Vejlsøvej 29 P.O. Box 20951 DK-8600 Silkeborg NL-2500 EZ The Hague Tel: +45 3546 6431 Tel: +31 703 392 539 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Troels Bruun Jørgensen* Mark Overman* Member

Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Agency for Spatial and Environmental Directorate General of Spatial Policy Planning P.O. Box 20951 Lyseng Allé 1 NL-2500 EZ The Hague DK-8270 Højbjerg

Tel: +31 70 339 2706 Tel: +45 72 54 83 06 E-mail: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected]

DENMARK Jakob G. Hansen Substitute Anette Prilow* Member Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority Vejlsøvej 29 Danish Regions DK-8600 Silkeborg Dampfærgevej 22 P.O. Box 2593 Tel.: +45 35 46 64 36 DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø E-mail: [email protected]

Tel.: +45 35 29 82 71 E-mail: [email protected] Michael Koch-Larsen Substitute

Henrik M Jensen* Danish Regions MA Representative Dampfærgevej 22 P.O. Box 2593 Central Denmark Region DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø Skottenborg 26 DK-8800 Viborg Tel.: +45 35 29 81 71 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +45 87 28 50 96 E-mail: [email protected]

1 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

Svend H. Wellemberg* Elke Tiebout* Observer Member

Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority Enterprise Flanders Langelinie Allé 17 Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 DK-2100 Copenhagen B-1030 Brussels

Tel: +45 35 46 62 95 Tel: +32 25 53 37 31 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Jytte Lang* Observer Liesbet Lefevere* Member Central Denmark Region Skottenborg 26 Province of West-Flanders DK-8800 Viborg International Relations and European Programs Tel: +45 87 28 54 40 Leopold III Laan E-mail: [email protected] PO Box 41 BE-8200 Brugge Belgium Klaus Jensen Observer Tel.: +32 50 40 34 36 E-mail: [email protected] Central Denmark Region Skottenborg 26 DK-8800 Viborg Stefaan Pennewaert* Substitute Tel: + 45 87 28 54 32 E-mail: [email protected] Enterprise Flanders Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 B-1030 Brussels FLEMISH REGION Tel: +32 25 533 725 Pim Bonne* E-mail: Member stefaan.pennewaert@agentschapondernemen. be Flemish Ministry of Mobility and Public Works, Afdeling Haven- en Waterbeleid - Team Internationaal David Grzegorszewski Koning Albert II-laan 20, bus 5 Substitute B-1000 Brussels Enterprise Flanders Tel.: +32 25 53 62 51 Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 E-mail: [email protected] B-1030 Brussels

Tel: +32 25 53 39 96 E-mail: david.grzegorzewsksit@agentschaponderneme n.be

2 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

Hedwig de Pauw Guido Sempell Substitute Member

Province of Oost-Vlaanderen Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, State Gouverenementstraat 1 Ministry for Urban Development and B-9000 Environment Tel: +32 92 67 86 82 Alter Steinweg 4 E-mail: [email protected] D-20459 Hamburg

Tel.: +49 40 42840 8094 Carolien Rubens* E-mail: [email protected] Observer

Enterprise Flanders Ingrid Kürsten Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 Member B-1030 Brussels Lower Saxony Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Tel: +32 25 533 729 Consumer Protection and Regional E-mail: Development [email protected] Calenberger Str. 2/ Ref. 302 e D-30169 Hannover

Tel: + 49 511 120 4771 GERMANY E-mail: [email protected]

Antje Hauptvogel* Member Michael Meinert Substitute Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Consumer Protection and Regional Ministry of Justice, Employment and Development European Affairs of Land Schleswig-Holstein Calenberger Str. 2 / Ref. 302 Lorentzendamm 35 D-30169 Hannover D-24103 Kiel

Tel.: +49 511 120 5973 Tel: +49 431 988 2108 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Sascha Doer* Anja Schmid Member Substitute

Ministry of Economics and Labour Der Ministerpräsident des Landes Schleswig Division EB5 Holstein - Staatskanzlei Scharnhorststr. 34-37 Düsternbrooker Weg 104 D-10115 Berlin D-24105 Kiel

Tel.: +49 301 861 157 678 Tel: +49 431 988 2646 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

3 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

Katrin Eimert* Mark Overman* Substitute Member

Der Senator für Bau, Umwelt und Verkehr Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Ansgaritostrasse 2 Directorate General of Spatial Policy D-28195 Bremen P.O. Box 20951 NL-2500 EZ The Hague Tel: +49 421 361 11952 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +31 70 339 2706 E-mail: [email protected]

Ralph Baumheier Substitute Birgit Dufour* Member Der Senator für Bau, Umwelt und Verkehr Ansgaritostrasse 2 Province of Zeeland D-28195 Bremen Provinciehuis, Abdij 6 P.O. Box 6001 Tel: +49 421 361 6515 NL-4330 LA Middleburg E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +31 118 631 463 E-mail: [email protected] Claudia Eggert* Observer Albert Haan* Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Substitute State Ministry for Urban Development and Environment SNN Northern Netherlands Assembly Alter Steinweg 4 Leonard Springerlaan 23 D-20459 Hamburg P.O. Box 779 NL-9700 AT Groningen Tel: +49 40 42840 8013 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +31 50 52 29 970 E-mail: [email protected]

THE NETHERLANDS Frank Everaarts Berry C. Eijgendaal* Substitute Member Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Ministry of Economic Affairs, ALP: E/113 P.O.-Box 20951 Postbus 20101 NL-2500 EZ The Hague NL-2500 EC The Hague Tel.: +31 70 3393 3460 Tel.: +31 70 379 6807/6687 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

4 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

Lidwien Slothouwer van Schipstal* Bjørn Kristen Barvik* Observer Member

NL Milieu en Leefomgeving/ Ruimte, Water Ministry of Local Government and Regional en Regionale Ontwikkeling Development Croeselaan 15 Akersgt. 59 NL-3503 RE Utrecht Postboks 8112 Dep N-0032 Oslo Tel: +31 88 602 7028 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +47 22 24 70 38 E-mail: [email protected]

Yolanda Schmal* Observer Axel Rød* Substitute Province of Noord-Holland Ceylonpoort 5-25 Ministry of Local Government and Regional P.O. Box 3007 Development NL-2001 DA Haarlem P.O Box 8112 Dep N-0032 Oslo Tel: +31 23 514 3401 E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +47 22 24 70 16 E-mail: [email protected]

NORWAY Tom Christer Nilsen Erik Sveistrup* Substitute Member Hordaland Fylkeskommune Ministry of the Environment, Department for Veste Stromkai 9 Regional Planning P.O. Box 7900 Myntgata 2 N-5200 Bergen P.O. Box 8013 Dep N-0030 Oslo Tel: +47 55 23 90 08 E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +47 22 24 58 80 E-mail: [email protected] Lars Haukvik* Observer Gunn Marit Helgesen Member North Sea Commission/C.O. Telemarks Fylkeskommune Telemarks Fylkeskommune Fylkeshuset, Fylkesbakken 6 Fylkeshuset, Fylkesbakken 6 N-3706 Skien N-3706 Skien Tel: + 47 35 58 42 50 Tel: +47 3558 42 00 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

5 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

SWEDEN Ylva Rönning Substitute Maud Schön* Member National Board of Housing, Building and Planning Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Box 534 Communications, Division for Regional S-37123 Karlskrona Growth Mäster Samuelsgatan 70 Tel.: +46 455 35 31 15 S-103 33 Stockholm E-mail: [email protected]

Tel.: +46 8405 3852 E-mail: [email protected] Ulf Savbäck Substitute

Olov Schultz* Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Member Communications Mäster Samuelsgatan 70 National Board of Housing, Building and S-10333 Stockholm Planning Box 534 Tel.: +46 84 05 32 23 SE-371 23 Karlskrona E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +46 455 35 3151 Hans-Åke Persson* E-mail: [email protected] Observer

Västra Götalands Region Vivi-Ann Nilsson Norra Hamngatan 14 Member Box 1091 S-405 23 Göteborg Västra Götalandsregionen, Growth and Development Tel.: +46 3163 0985 Norra Hamngatan 14 E-mail: [email protected] P.O. Box 1091 S-405 23 Göteborg UNITED KINGDOM Tel: +46 31 61 10 00 E-mail: [email protected] Jim Millard* Member

Henrik Lindblom* Scottish Government Substitute 5 Atlantic Quay 150 Broomielaw G2 8LU Glasgow Region Värmland Drottningsgatan 45 Tel.: +44 300 244 1101 P.O. Box 1022 E-mail: [email protected] S-651 15 Karlstad

Tel.: +46 54 29 51 34 E-mail: [email protected]

6 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 1

Craig Ingleton* Nathalie Verschelde Member EC substitute Department for Communities and Local Government European Commission, DG Regional Policy, Eland House, 3/A1 Bressenden Place Unit E1, N105 3/21 SW1E 5DU London Avenue de Nerviens 105 B-1049 Brussels Tel: +44 303 444 2701 E-Mail: Tel.: +32 2 299 22 67 [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Roy Boulton* Member * attendant at meeting(s) in 2010

Northamptonshire County Council, Growth Management County Hall P.O. Box 163 NN1 1AX Northampton

Tel.: +44 604 236 056 E-Mail: [email protected]

Jon Jordan* Observer

European Policy Solutions 9 Cairns Place, Pool of Muckhart FK14 7LH Clackmannanshire

Tel.: +44 1259 781404 E-mail: [email protected]

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Victoria Varga Lencses* EC advisor

European Commission, DG Regional Policy, Unit E1, N105 3/21 Avenue de Nerviens 105 B-1049 Brussels

Tel.: +32 2 296 47 80 E-mail: [email protected]

7 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

Membership of the Steering Committee in 2010

CHAIR – MEETING 5 Kaja Korgaard Member Pim Bonne* Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority Flemish Ministry of Mobility and Public Regional Policy Works, Afdeling Haven- en Waterbeleid - Vejlsøvej 29 Team Internationaal DK-8600 Silkeborg Koning Albert II-laan 20, bus 5 B-1000 Brussels Tel: +45 3546 6431 E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +32 2553 6251 E-mail: [email protected] Jakob G. Hansen Substitute DENMARK Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority Troels Bruun Jørgensen* Vejlsøvej 29 Member DK-8600 Silkeborg

Agency for Spatial and Environmental Tel.: +45 5346 6436 Planning E-mail: [email protected] Lyseng Allé 1 DK-8270 Højbjerg Michael Koch-Larsen Tel: +45 72 54 83 06 Substitute E-Mail: [email protected] Danish Regions Dampfærgevej 22 Anette Prilow* P.O. Box 2593 Member DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø

Danish Regions Tel.: +45 35298171 Dampfærgevej 22 E-mail: [email protected] P.O. Box 2593 DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø Jytte Lang* Tel: +45 35 29 82 71 Observer E-mail: [email protected] Central Denmark Region Skottenborg 26 Henrik M. Jensen* DK-8800 Viborg MA representative Tel: +45 8728 5440 Central Denmark Region E-mail: [email protected] Skottenborg 26 DK-8800 Viborg

Tel: +45 87 28 50 96 E-mail: [email protected]

1 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

Klaus Jensen* Stefaan Pennewaert* Observer Substitute

Central Denmark Region Enterprise Flanders Skottenborg 26 Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 DK-8800 Viborg B-1030 Brussels

Tel: + 45 8728 5432 Tel: +32 25 533 725 Email: [email protected] E-mail: stefaan.pennewaert@agentschapondernemen. be FLEMISH REGION

Elke Tiebout* David Grzegorszewski Member Substitute

Enterprise Flanders Enterprise Flanders Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 B-1030 Brussels B-1030 Brussels

Tel: +32 255 337 31 Tel: +32 25 53 39 96 E-mail: E-mail: [email protected] david.grzegorzewsksit@agentschaponderneme n.be

Liesbet Lefevere Member Carolien Rubens* Observer Province of West-Flanders International Relations and European Enterprise Flanders Programs Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 Leopold III Laan B-1030 Brussels PO Box 41 BE-8200 Brugge Tel: +32 25 533 729 Belgium E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +32 50 40 34 36 E-mail: [email protected] GERMANY

Julio Delva* Antje Hauptvogel* Substitute Member

Provincie of East Flanders Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Gouvernenementstraat 1 Consumer Protection and Regional BE-9000 Gent Development Calenberger Str. 2 / Ref. 302 Tel: +32 9 267 87 22 D-30169 Hannover E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +49 511 120 5973 Email: [email protected]

2 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

Verena Hachmann* Guido Sempell Member Member

Federal Office for Building and Regional Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, State Planning (BBR), European Spatial and Urban Ministry for Urban Development and Development Environment Deichmanns Aue 31-37 Alter Steinweg 4 D-53179 Bonn D-20459 Hamburg

Tel: +49 228 99 401 1341 Tel: +49 40 42840 8094 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Sascha Doer* Katrin Eimert* Member Substitute

Ministry of Economics and Labour Der Senator für Bau, Umwelt und Verkehr Division EB5 Ansgaritostrasse 2 Scharnhorststr. 34-37 D-28195 Bremen D-10115 Berlin Tel: +49 421 361 11952 Tel.: +49 301 861 157 678 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Ralph Baumheier Ingrid Kürsten Substitute Member Der Senator für Bau, Umwelt und Verkehr Lower Saxony Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Ansgaritostrasse 2 Consumer Protection and Regional D-28195 Bremen Development Calenberger Str. 2/ Ref. 302 Tel: +49 421 361 6515 D-30169 Hannover E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: + 49 511 120 4771 Email: [email protected] Michael Meinert Substitute

Anja Schmid Ministry of Justice, Employment and Member Europeann Affairs of Land Schleswig- Holstein Der Ministerpräsident des Landes Schleswig Lorentzendamm 35 Holstein - Staatskanzlei D-24103 Kiel Düsternbrooker Weg 104 D-24105 Kiel Tel: +49 431 988 2108 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +49 431 988 2646 E-mail: [email protected]

3 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

Claudia Eggert* Frank Everaarts Observer Substitute

Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Alter Steinweg 4 P.O.-Box 20951 D-20459 Hamburg NL-2500 EZ The Hague

Tel: +49 40 42840 8013 Tel.: +31 70 3393 3460 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

THE NETHERLANDS Lidwien Slothouwer - van Schipstal* Observer Birgit Dufour* Member NL Milieu en Leefomgeving/ Ruimte, Water en Regionale Ontwikkeling Province of Zeeland Croeselaan 15 Provinciehuis, Abdij 6 NL-3503 RE Utrecht P.O. Box 6001 NL-4330 LA Middelburg Tel: +31 88 602 7028 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +31 118 631463 E-mail: [email protected] NORWAY

Mark Overman* Axel Rød* Member Member

Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Ministry of Local Government and Regional Directorate General of Spatial Policy Development P.O. Box 20951 P.O Box 8112 Dep NL-2500 EZ The Hague N-0032 Oslo

Tel: +31 70 339 2706 Tel: +47 22 24 70 16 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Albert Haan* Bjørn Reisz* Substitute Member

SNN Northern Netherlands Assembly Telemarks Fylkeskommune Leonard Springerlaan 23 Fylkeshuset, Fylkesbakken 6 P.O. Box 779 N-3706 Skien NL-9700 AT Groningen Tel: +47 3558 4451 Tel: +31 50 52 29 970 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

4 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

Kate Clarke SWEDEN Member Hordaland County Council, European Office Olov Schultz* Agnes Mowinkels Gt. 5 Member P.O. Box 7900 National Board of Housing, Building and N-5020 Bergen Planning P.O. Box 534 Tel.: +47 5523 9532 S-371 23 Karlskrona E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +46 455 35 3151 E-mail: [email protected] Ann Irene Sæternes Substitute Vivi-Ann Nilsson * Eastern Norway County Network c/o Oppland Member County Municipality Oppland Fylkeskommune, Serviceboks Västra Götalandsregionen, Growth and N-2626 Lillehammer Development Norra Hamngatan 14 Tel: +47 6128 9353 P.O. Box 1091 E-mail: [email protected] S-405 23 Göteborg

Tel: +46 31 61 10 00 Geir Sør-Reime E-mail: [email protected] Substitute

Rogaland County Council Maud Schön Artitekt Eckhoffsgate 1 Member P.O. Box 130 N-4001 Stavanger Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications, Division for Regional Tel: + 47 5151 6855 Growth E-mail: [email protected] Mäster Samuelsgatan 70 S-103 33 Stockholm

Marit Einen* Tel.: +46 8405 3852 Observer E-mail: [email protected]

Hordaland Fylkeskommune Europakontoret Henrik Lindblom Postboks 7900 Substitute N-5020 Bergen Region Värmland Tel: +47 552 395 40 Drottninggatan 45 E-mail: [email protected] P.O. Box 1022 SE-651 15 Karlstad

Tel: +46 54 29 51 34 E-Mail: [email protected]

5 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

Ylva Rönning Elisabeth Drew Substitute Member

National Board of Housing, Building and Dunfermline Business Centre Planning Funding Development Box 534 Izatt Avenue S-37123 Karlskrona KY11 3BZ Dunfermline

Tel.: +46 455 35 31 15 Tel: +44 1383 602 389 E-mail: [email protected] Second Tel: internal line 492 176 Fax: +44 790 466 2265 E-mail: [email protected] Ulf Savbäck Substitute Jim Millard* Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Member Communications Mäster Samuelsgatan 70 Scottish Government S-10333 Stockholm 5 Atlantic Quay 150 Broomielaw G2 8LU Glasgow Tel.: +46 84 05 32 23 E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +44 300 244 1101 E-mail: [email protected]

Hans-Åke Persson* Observer Melissa Mackin Substitute Västra Götalands Region P.O. Box 1091 Scottish Government S-405 23 Göteborg 5 Atlantic Quay 150 Broomielaw G2 8LU Glasgow Tel: +46 3163 0985 E-mail: [email protected] Tel,: +44 300 244 1102 E-mail: [email protected]

UNITED KINGDOM

Emma Lindsay* Ingrid Dobson* Member Member East of Scotland European Consortium One Northeast, International Policy Team 3 City Square Stella House, DD1 3BA Dundee Goldcrest Way, Newburn Riverside Tel: +44 1259 727 303 NE15 8NY Newcastle Upon Tyne E- mail: [email protected]

Tel: +44 191 229 6455 E-mail: [email protected] Jon Jordan* Observer

European Policy Solutions 9 Cairns Place, Pool of Muckhart FK14 7LH Clackmannanshire

Tel.: +44 1259 781404 E-mail: [email protected]

6 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 2

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Victoria Varga Lencses* EC advisor

European Commission, DG Regional Policy, Unit E1, N105 3/21 Avenue de Nerviens 105 B-1049 Brussels

Tel.: +32 2 296 47 80 E-mail: [email protected]

Nathalie Verschelde EC substitute

European Commission, DG Regional Policy, Unit E1, N105 3/21 Avenue de Nerviens 105 B-1049 Brussels

Tel.: +32 2 299 22 67 E-mail: [email protected]

* attendant at meeting(s) in 2010

7 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme ______Appendix 3

Contact Point Network in 2010

DENMARK SWEDEN

No contact point available. Hans-Åke Persson Västra Götalandsregionen Box 1091 FLEMISH REGION S-405 23 Göteborg

Carolien Ruebens Tel: +46 3163 0985 Agency for Economy E-mail: [email protected] Koning Albert II Laan 35, bus 12 B-1030 Brussels UNITED KINGDOM Tel.: + 32 2 553 37 29 E-mail: [email protected] Jon Jordan European Policy Solutions 9 Cairns Place, Pool of Muckhart GERMANY FK14 7LH Clackmannanshire

Claudia Eggert Tel.: +44 1259 781404 Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg E-mail: [email protected] State Ministry for Urban Development and Environment Alter Steinweg 4 D-20459 Hamburg

Tel: +49 40 42840 8013 E-mail: [email protected]

THE NETHERLANDS

Lidwien Slothouwer - van Schipstal NL Milieu en Leefomgeving/ Ruimte, Water en Regionale Ontwikkeling Croeselaan 15 NL-3503 RE Utrecht

Tel: +31 88 602 7028 E-mail: [email protected]

NORWAY

Kate Clarke Hordaland County Council, European Office Agnes Mowinkels Gt. 5 P.O. Box 7900 N-5020 Bergen Tel.: +47 5523 9532 E-mail: [email protected]

Regionshuset Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme __Appendix 4 Viborg Regional Udvikling Skottenborg 26 Postboks 21 DK-8800 Viborg Tel. +45 8728 5000 www.regionmidtjylland.dk

Interreg IVB North Sea Programme 2010 Annual Employer statement – by the Central Denmark Region

In accordance with the programme CIP, approved by the European Com- rd mission on the 3 of October 2007, Central Denmark Region was desig- Dato 14.04.2011 nated by the responsible authorities to be the hosting body for the joint Contactperson: Henrik M. Jensen technical secretariat (JTS) and as such the legal employer for the JTS Tel. +45 87285096 staff. [email protected] Sagsnr. The tasks and responsibilities of the Central Denmark Region are regu- lated between the Region and the responsible national authorities in indi- Side 0/2 vidual agreements signed by the partners during 2008.

The detailed services to be delivered by the Central Denmark Region under the Interreg IVB programme are stated in the Service Level Agree- ment approved at the Programme Monitoring Committee (PMC) 1 in Silkeborg September 2008.

The Programme Secretariat is situated in Viborg City Centre at the address Jernbanegade 22. 3 floors – 589 m2 - have been rented on a long- term contract, and equipped with 15 up to date workstations, in accordance with the Service Level Agreement. In these premises where also in 2010 up to 7 staff members of the Interact Point for Qualification and Transfer situated, but the Interact Programme here finances all services.

Staff changes during 2010: During the year 2010 Central Denmark Region held contracts with 18 employees at the Interreg North Sea Programme Secretariat. At the start of the year, 14 employees had a contract and at the end of the year 13 employees had a contract.

12 fulltime contracts (37 hours per week) where running unchanged through the year.

During the year 3 internships/students where employed on short term contracts. One from May until October, one from May until July (left for another job) and one from August until December 2010.

One employer in the finance and administration unit left at the end of February when her contract as maternity cover terminated.

One senior officer in the finance and administration unit left by the end of November, and a Cluster Facilitator was employed starting from 1st of October.

For the year 2010 the sum of 1.186.936 € was paid out by the Interreg North Sea IVB programme for staff salaries, including pension and holiday allowances. In 2009 the sum was 1.246.740 € (923.199 € IVB program and 323.541 € from the IIIB program). Extra costs in 2009 were due to maternity leave/cover.

Side 2/2 In agreement with the approved Service Level Agreement and the Em- ployer Function paper Central Denmark Region as legal employer ensure, that staff salaries, new contracts / number of staff and changes in contracts are implemented in accordance with the structure settled in the Employer Function Paper approved by PMC. Central Denmark Region acts as advisor to the Programme Monitoring Committee / the chair of the Committee and the Programme Manager and takes full responsibility for the staff contracts being in compliance with Danish Law and Labour Marked regulations.

The Service Level Agreement approved by PMC stipulate the limits for the services delivered by Central Denmark Region. According to this agreement 13 fulltime staff members and two students are the maximum number of staff approved by the PMC, and by this the maximum number of staff that Central Denmark Region must deliver the agreed services to.

Central Denmark Region Viborg, 14 May 2011 Henrik Michael Jensen

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Overview of approved projects in 2010

1 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Priority 1: Building on our capacity for innovation

2 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

ERIP - Priority 1 Lead One NorthEast Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Newcastle University University of Applied Science SINTEF Business School Osnabruck Lingen Municipality of Ammerland N.V NOM Hanseatic Parliament Ghent University SWEREA IVF AB Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 3 NL 1 NO 1 SE 1 UK 1 DK 0 Area of 1.1 Building the innovation capacity of businesses Intervention: Theme: The project identifies an increasing pressure on EU manufacturers to be more efficient and innovative in their manufacturing processes. The cause of this pressure is identified by the project as increased production capacity in low-cost economies (LCE) and increased innovation and level of sophistication of supply chains in high-cost economies. The main problems undermining the competitiveness of SMEs are limited knowledge of lean/agile techniques; unawareness and limited understanding of regional governments and across organisations of the potential of lean/agile; lack of good practice and knowledge transfer to SMEs; lack of resources amongst SMEs; and inadequate training. Transnational cooperation is seen as the only way forward to address these issues appropriately, based on the view that they had not been solved adequately in the national contexts. The method applied is to use a regional model to improve manufacturing efficiency and as the initial core of the ERIP model, which is subsequently transferred across the NSR. Expected Performance Validation Index - Productivity improvements (quality, costs, delivery, lead- Results: time, through put time, export & turnover); Transnational network of Innovative Productivity Centres; Develop and test a Lean Change Methodology for SMEs; Development of joint long-term industrial strategic actions and clusters; EU manufacturers will become more efficient and innovative in their manufacturing processes; Influence regional & national policy agendas. Amount € 1.640.623,00 Granted:

3 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

NMU (Extended) - Priority 1 Lead Edinburgh Napier University, Transport Research Institue (TRi) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: International Jacobs Goeteborg University Molde College University Swedish Environmental University of Applied University of Applied Institute Sciences Bremen Sciences Kiel University of Southern University of Applied Denmark, Department of Pantrak Sciences Lübeck Maritime Research and Innovation University of Hamburg Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 5 NL 0 NO 1 SE 2 UK 3 DK 1 Area of 1.1 Building the innovation capacity of businesses Intervention: Theme: The NMU project is building on the broad range of knowledge and expertise in the North Sea area which is being harnessed within a common and lasting transnational network of universities, The "Northern Maritime University" will directly address the needs of the maritime industry: To better prepare maritime business managers to cope with growing maritime traffic, port development, and rising environmental challenges, by developing multidisciplinary and internationally oriented qualifications at Bachelors and Masters level. NMU is thereby working towards establishing an Area of Research and Innovation for the maritime industry in the North Sea Region, contributing towards the Lisbon strategy to create a more effective maritime business sector and an enhanced competitiveness of the maritime sector. Expected Common curricula for North Sea Region oriented maritime business management Results: programmes with qualifications at Bachelors, Masters and CPD levels; Qualification offerings in maritime business management including e-learning modules; Stakeholder study, a NMU “Toolbox” identifying the maritime sector’s educational needs in the NSR; NMU portfolio and a roadmap for programme and content development; Professional accreditation of programmes and qualifications; Northern Maritime University (NMU) network Amount € 2.331.452,00 Granted:

4 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

E-CLIC - Priority 1 Lead County Administrative Board of Värmland Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Compare Karlstad Karlstad University University College of Borås Foundation ESPIRA Tillväxtcenter and Ladok Division xxx Inkubator Jade University of Applied University of Groningen Hanzehogeschool Sciences Groningen Internet ex- Howest - Department PIH Norfolk County Council change iPark (Innovation Park Rogaland Kurs og University of Stavanger Stavanger) kompetansesenter University of Applied Initiative D21e.V. Sciences and Arts Hannover Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 4 NL 3 NO 3 SE 7 UK 1 DK 0 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: E-CLIC aims to develop research and innovation networks related to broadband media services in order to stimulate the commercialisation of the participating regions’ knowledge base and encourage the development of new employment opportunities. Building on experience from NSR IIIB, E-CLIC aims to enhance the provision of broadband services that are perceived as the engine for stimulating economic growth and employment. A ‘cluster’ of eight Broadband Media Centres will be established to create NSR competence and increase critical mass in the sector and promote cooperation between businesses and research and education organisations. Expected 8 European Collaborative Innovation Centres around the North Sea for Broadband Media Results: Services based on Triple Helix model of Innovation; Create a LivingLab environment & integration between LivingLabs for content and dissemination purposes; New products and services for e-Government, e-commerce, e-Health and e-Learning; Further broadband access in participating regions, and in particular in rural areas; Transnational database to achieve a pool of resources in different disciplines for the multimedia industry; Transnational co-operation in the field of content production. Especially content for the HD TV & IPTV market, including multimedia content; Transnational programmes for involvement (and exchange) of students/company/public service; Development of the next generation E-CLIC model as a strategic plan for regional development in Europe Amount € 3.285.000,00 Granted:

5 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Innovative Foresight Planning for Business Development - Priority 1 Lead Greater Stavanger Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Innovation Norway Sparebank 1 SR Bank NAV Rogaland Business Administration Vest-Agder County Council Region Central Denmark College, BI Stavanger Gesellshaft für Technologieförderung Province of Drente Province of Groningen Itzehoe mhB (IZET) Chamber of Commerce Nothern Netherlands Regoin Province of Friesland Northern Netherlands (NOM) Scottish Enterprise iPAX AS Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 1 NL 5 NO 6 SE 0 UK 1 DK 1 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: IFP establishes a transnational framework of cooperation to systematically tackle challenges regarding the competitiveness of regions in the NSR in the global economy. Foresight Planning is used as a method not only to link regions and selected clusters transnationally and plan for joint actions in the future, but also to find solutions tailor-made for the regions facing challenges related to the shift of the industrial base (decline, transition, and growth). Key elements of the transnational project methodology are the assessment of the present economic situation, the pooling of experience and good practice, and the design of forward- looking strategies and concrete action plans based on applied Foresight Planning processes to build capacity for innovation. The public sector is considered a key partner to facilitate the processes of innovation, internationalisation, and creation of critical mass in the NSR. Expected Implementation of transnational Innovative Foresight Planning for businesses and business Results: clusters for transnational means of future planning; Business development in four clusters (Food, Energy, Advanced Technology and Financial Services); On-line policy tool-box: Embedded within regional and transnational policy networks and, as a hub to connect clusters, businesses and public agents on a regional and transnational level Amount € 1.296.993,00 Granted:

6 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

NSSP - Priority 1 Lead Dundee City Council Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Screen East Bergen Mediaby FilmFyn A/S Nordmedia Fonds GmbH University of Dundee Film Fonds Rotterdam Dundee College Västra Götalands Regionen Tietgen Business College Kunsthøgskolen i Ber-gen Filmby Aarhus (KHIB/Bergen Na-tional Roskilde University Academy of Arts) Screen South Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 1 NL 1 NO 2 SE 1 UK 4 DK 4 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: NSSP seeks to tap the potential of the creative industries (i.e. the film industry) to promote innovation and growth in the NSR and increase the region’s competitiveness in a global context. Transnational cooperation is concentrated on common challenges, such as marketing, financing and SME support is proposed to tackle issues such as fragmented national markets inhibiting critical mass creation (developing economies of scale), lack of coherence and coordination of actors and actions across the NSR, and loss of talents in more peripheral areas. Expected Visual Effects Research Network (VERN) research centre for the North Sea region; Master Results: classes in media/production; Business Development Platform for NSR film/TV/media companies; Transnational Screen Office Network, Locations Service Database, and Media Cluster Mapping to attract inward investment; Database on educational resources; Work & training exchange scheme Amount € 2.955.237,00 Granted:

7 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

POWER cluster - Priority 1 Lead Bremerhavener Gesellschaft für Investitionsförderung and Stadtentwiclung mbH Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Senator für Umwelt, Bau, Carl von Ossietzky Verkehr und Europa des Hochschule Bremerhaven Universität Oldenburg Landes Bremen Landesregierung Schleswig- Stiftung Offshore Holstein, Ministerium für Wirtschaftsakademie Windenergie Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Schleswig-Holstein GmbH Verkehr Suffolk County Council East of England Energy Northumberland College Environment & Transport Group Aalborg Universiteit, South Denmark European Offshore Center Denmark Department of Civil Office Engineering Chalmers University of Technische Universiteit Delft, Technology, Department of Section Wind Energy, Faculty Greater Stavanger Energy and Environment, LR Division of Electric Power Engineering Öckerö kommun Sub-Partners: Gewerbliche Lehranstalten

Bremerhaven Countries: BE 0 DE 8 NL 1 NO 1 SE 2 UK 3 DK 3 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: As a direct successor of NSR Interreg IIIB’s POWER project, it is centred on the development of a strong Offshore Wind Industry (OWI) cluster in the NSR. Core activities include a strengthened stakeholder and business-to-business network, leading to knowledge transfer and bringing together complementary expertise to create more innovation in the sector, energy grid reinforcement across the NSR, developed skills training courses (including higher education and addressing unemployment) to create benefits for restructuring regions, and raise acceptance among the wider public as a basis for wider roll- out of wind energy installations. Expected Offshore Wind Energy (OWE) industry classification system, interactive OW cluster map for Results: the NSR; Common curricula for OWE business management programmes / qualification at Bachelors and Masters levels for the NSR; On-line innovation platform to match-make research & business sectors in the NSR; Transnational update on the NSR State of the Art of the industry: Exploring NSR’s origins of different supply chain components; Report about workforce transformations to tackle workforce shortages in OWI Amount € 2.499.471,00 Granted:

8 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Smart Cities - Priority 1 Lead Intercommunale Leiedal Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Stadt Osterholz- Stad Kortrijk Lessius Mechelen vzw Scharmbeck Jade Hochschule (Fachhochschule Bis GmbH Bremerhaven Gemeente Groningen Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth) Kristiansand and Lillesand Karlstads Kommun Norfolk County Council Edinburgh Napier Porism Ltd Edinburgh City University Sub-

Partners: Countries: BE 3 DE 3 NL 1 NO 1 SE 1 UK 4 DK 0 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: Smart Cities aims to create an innovation network between governments and academia in six countries to promote excellence in the domain of e-services (development and take-up) in order to set a new standard for e-service delivery in the whole NSR. The transnational working method (pooling expertise, joint model development) is proposed to equip decision- makers to achieve further innovation in the delivery of e-enabled public services. Expected Build e-service platform with the potential to be shared across the NSR in the domain of Results: service-delivery, wireless service and take-up services; Innovative e-public services, such as jointly pilot new services channels, blue-tooth services for public transport, online forms in mobile phones and wireless city services; Common interface standards and practical indicators and management instruments to survey and guarantee e-service delivery; Co- design public mobile services aimed at efficiency, cost-saving and participation with attention for e-inclusion; A Network of North Sea e-Government leaders and an academic and research network Amount € 3.365.907,00 Granted:

9 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

POYO - Priority 1 Lead Albeda Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Gateshead College Syntra West Newcastle College Lijmpraktijk Hogeschool Rotterdam Hamburger Volkshochschule Handwerkskammer Hamburg Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 2 NL 5 NO 0 SE 0 UK 2 DK 0 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: The ports in the North Sea Area play a vital role in the economical situation. POYO is focussing on maintenance processes, i.e. preventing problems instead of solving them, in order to increase the efficiency in the production process of the ports in the North Sea Region and thereby to enlarge competitiveness and innovation opportunities. POYO is strengthening and empowering networks to create an international cluster in the North Sea Area, thereby laying the basis for knowledge transfer on innovative maintenance techniques and the development of an EU standard towards certification of all maintenance techniques. As a main result, 4 physical Centres of Excellence will bring together industry/SME and vocational education to bundle knowledge and experience on maintenance issues. Expected 4 physical centres of excellence; POYO portal, digital platform for training, and exchanges Results: of experiences between different sectors; Network of 5oo companies in at least five countries; Pilot projects based on testing of jointly developed instruments; Action plan and Handbook for a European certification on maintenance courses; Input for European policy on maintenance issues related to innovation and the benefit vocational training by linking the network to regional and national governments: monitoring, yearly and final report(s). Amount € 2.003.806,00 Granted:

10 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

ClimaFruit - Priority 1 Lead Department of Horticulture, Aarhus University (AU) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Faculty of Landscape Norwegian Institute for Department of Plant & Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Agriculture, Swedish Environmental Reseaarch Norwegian Univeristy of Life University of Agricultural (Bioforsk) Sciences (UMB) Sciences (SLU) The James Hutton Institute Fruit Research Institute

(JHI) (OVA) Jork Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 1 NL 0 NO 2 SE 1 UK 1 DK 2 Area of 1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks Intervention: Theme: ClimaFruit will establish transnational cooperation between research institutions and the NSR berryfruit industry in order to maximize the implementation of innovative technologies and tools in the private sector to overcome challenges related to changed climate conditions. Thereby, the project will secure, sustain & grow the economic value of the NSR berryfruit industry under changing climatic conditions by developing a world leading Berry Fruit Cluster in the NSR, ensuring investment, opportunities, sustainable use of resources & the production of healthy food. The project will produce methods to reduce the carbon footprint of the industry, superior plant material and future production strategies better suited to the NSR climate, as well as a virtual Soft Fruit Climate Change and Environment Centre ensuring the continuous uptake of methods by the berry fruit industry. In this way, ClimaFruit will secure the NSR as a better place to live by reducing chemical use & the carbon footprint of horticultural production systems, a better place to work by creating wealth via employment, and a better place to invest in & export from by overcoming existing risks & demonstrating the opportunity to grow the berryfruit industry in the NSR. Expected Virtual Soft fruit Climate Change Environment Centre; Sustainable production solutions Results: reducing the carbon footprint of the berry fruit industry; Novel plant material and production strategies for protected culture to reduce the likelihood of crop loss from climatic events; Database of chemical fruit composition & variability in response to sustainable production practices / variable climate & climate extremes; Scientific community recognition, min 14 International articles & min 8 international conference presentations; Series of grower & producer-specific guidelines and web-based predictive and decision tools Amount € 2.919.421,00 Granted:

11 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

SKINT - Priority 1 Lead Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: University of applied sciences University of Delft University of Sheffield Hamburg Norsk Institut for Bradford city council University of Abertay Dundee Vannforskning (NIVA) Sub-Partners: Norwegian Institute for Urban Directorate for Cultural Geological Survey of Norway and Regional Research Heritage (NIBR) Countries: BE 0 DE 1 NL 1 NO 4 SE 0 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 1.3 Building society`s and the institutional capacity for innovation Intervention: Theme: The project is focusing on to integrate and create knowledge on different methods to empower water in interdisciplinary urban development and planning processes. The project has significant relevance for national and EU policy evaluation and the project supports the implementation of the Floods Directive (FD) and the Water framework Directive (WFD). The project will develop a SKINTWater portal, which provide the end-users from national and regional level an active source of information for on-line training course, including an effective web-communication tool. Expected Transnational analysis on communication between stakeholders in multidisciplinary urban Results: land and water management processes, and on how to integrate water in urban land use projects; Permanent web-portal for urban water and land use in Europe; Study to provide professionals with tools to convince decision makers to choose sustainable solutions; Web- based and face-to-face training programme for future water and urban land use professionals Amount € 1.907.669,00 Granted:

12 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

CCC - Priority 1 Lead Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: WFB Wirtschaftsfoderderung Stadt Oldenburg Kulturetage gGmbH Bremen Gmbh Delft University of Gemeente Groningen Intercommunale Leiedal Technology HOWEST University College Hoje-Taastrup Kommune Dundee College TILLT Culture & Working Life Newcastle City Council in West Sweden Sub-Partners: DESIGNREGIO KORTRIJK Countries: BE 3 DE 3 NL 2 NO 0 SE 1 UK 2 DK 1 Area of 1.3 Building society`s and the institutional capacity for innovation Intervention: Theme: CCC aims to build and implement an integrated evidence-based strategy for cities to strengthen their innovative capacity by means of a methodology of joint development and pilot testing of new tools and instruments in the fields of skills development, business cooperation and the development of urban creative clusters. CCC focuses on the catalyst role of creative industries in building and strengthening the innovative capacity of these urban economies, using a transnational triple helix of government, education and business. Outcomes include new and tested transferable instruments for skills development for entrepreneurs and methods for increased linkages within and beyond the creative sector as well as master classes, a network for NSR business cooperation and an extended information platform. Urban showcases will demonstrate instruments on how to establish creative clusters. Expected Tested tools and learning material to develop entrepreneurial skills in creative sector: Results: master classes, e-learning, mentoring network; NSR business network, business contact points, new cooperation instruments to support linkages within and outside the creative sector; Instruments to (re)shape urban zones resulting into urban show cases of creative clusters; Toolkit containing best practises and recommendations for instruments deriving from all work packages Amount € 2.074.971,00 Granted:

13 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

NorthseaSupply (Extended) - Priority 1 Lead Provincie Groningen Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Wirtschafts- und Basildon Council Edinburg Napier University Tourismusfördergesellschaft Landkreis Peine mbH Provinciale Ontwikkelings Investerings- en SYNTRA WEST Maatschappij West- Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Vlaanderen voor Noord-Nederland Kamer van Koophandel Samenwerkingsverband BAW Institut für regionale Noord-Nederland Noord-Nederland Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH Arvika Näringslivscenter Edinburgh Chamber of MARIKO Maritimes Ek.För. Commerce Kompetenzzentrum Sub-Partners: FEL Fachhochschule

Emden/Leer Countries: BE 2 DE 4 NL 5 NO 0 SE 1 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 1.3 Building society`s and the institutional capacity for innovation Intervention: Theme: Small markets in the NSR and SME access barriers to European supply markets are key problems addressed by the project. They cause competitive disadvantages for Northern SMEs and their regions compared to suppliers and regions involved in large regions. If SMEs stick to traditional regional markets prosperity and European integration, mayor markets are at risk. This risk is further aggravated by the ongoing global economic crisis which challenges regional economies to join forces with partners at an interregional level in order to regain competitiveness and to master structural change. NorthseaSupply adresses them with a Company Register and Training Measures with a SME-orientated partnership with electronic tenders. Expected Tender/ Product Partnerships and Networks within NSR Supply markets; 3 Pilot Tenders Results: accessible for public OEM tenders and specific requests for supplies of components or systems Amount € 1.383.357,00 Granted:

14 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Priority 2: Promoting the sustainable management of our environment

15 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

LNS - Priority 2 Lead Association of Rivers Trusts Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Centre for Marine & Coastal Zone Management Environment Agency Tweed Foundation (CMCZM), University of Aberdeen Regional Water Authority Regional Water Authority Regional Water Authority Hunze en Aa's Noorderzijlvest Waternet Royal Dutch National Angling INBO Research Institute for Municipality of Falkenberg Organisation Nature & Forest DTU Aqua National Institute Norwegian Institute for Odense Municipality for Aquatic Resources, Nature Research - NINA section for Inland Fisheries Johann Heinrich von Thünen- Institute, Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries Institute for Fisheries Ecology Sub-Partners: Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture

Science (CEFAS) Executive Agency of DEFRA Countries: BE 1 DE 1 NL 4 NO 1 SE 1 UK 5 DK 2 Area of 2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal Intervention: zone management Theme: The Living North Sea project will solve problems surrounding the management of fish species which rely on moving between the North Sea and freshwater systems of partner countries. These species are under considerable threat, some even in hazardous decline. Living North Sea brings together representatives from every North Sea Interreg partner country, in a programme which will make long lasting changes to the way that economically, environmentally, and socially important migratory fish species, whose stocks are shared between nations, are managed in the region. LNS will create a permanent management group for migratory fish of these habitats which will continue to work collaboratively, but will also tackle decision making processes to ensure that the results of the Living North Sea project are firmly integrated into future national and European policies. Expected Online open source GIS mapping system and a fish migration database to visualise Results: migratory routes in the NSR; Demonstration sites and expertise on how to solve key barriers for migratory fish; Expert management group for migratory fish; Recommendations on sustainable migratory fish management for the integration into EU, national and regional policies Amount € 3.157.127,00 Granted:

16 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

TIDE - Priority 2 Lead Hamburg Port Authority Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Lower Saxony Water Management, Coastal Free Hanseatic City of University of Bremen Defence and Nature Bremen Conservation Agency Flemish Authorities, Rijkswaterstaat Department of Mobility and Antwerp Port Authority Public Works Institute of Estuarine and University of Antwerp Environment Agency Coastal Studies, University of Hull Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 3 DE 3 NL 1 NO 0 SE 0 UK 2 DK 0 Area of 2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal Intervention: zone management Theme: TIDE considers tidally influenced NSR estuaries with large sediment transportation, which are used as shipping channels to large harbours. The ecosystem services of intertidal and shallow estuarine habitats are threatened and need to be considered to ensure economic benefits and the maintenance of ecologically important areas. At the same time decision- makers at these estuaries are faced with an increasingly challenging legal and global economic framework. TIDE will lead the path towards a more sustainable and effective use of large scale investments made into mitigation and compensation measures in NSR estuaries by applying for the first time a unified ecosystem approach to guide the process of integrated participatory management planning. Thus TIDE will not only improve the effectiveness of European, national and regional policy and provide instruments for regional development, but will make an essential contribution towards a more sustainable and effective use of investment into North Sea estuaries – since their planning will be based on a unified assessment concept and integrated management planning procedures. Expected Create same level of understanding among regional & international partners; Set up of Results: regional estuary working groups (REWG); SWOT analysis in each estuary as basis for future activities - areas for improvement identified; Devise Specific Roadmap for an Integrated Estuarine Management Plan for each demo area (SRIEMP): activity plan for project period and beyond; Convince policy makers: Harmonized starting point for future estuary management; Refined SRIEMP produced for each estuary, Stronger involvement of stakeholders & general public in all estuaries; Improve knowledge on morphological and ecological interrelation – diminish return of dredged material into estuary; TIDE Measure Box available to other estuary managers, experts and decision-makers; Basis laid for estuary specific tasks and comparative analyses; Further development of tools, measures, governance structures – TORs for joint guidelines Amount € 1.865.740,00 Granted:

17 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

BLAST (Extended) - Priority 2 Lead Norwegian Hydrographic Service Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Norwegian Coastal National Survey and Danish Coastal Authority Adminstration Cadastre Local Government Denmark National Space Institute Aalborg University Federal Maritime & Jeppesen GmbH T-Kartor AB Hydrographic Agency Natural Environment Malardalen University Seazone Solutions Limited Research Council Agency for Maritime and Delft University of UK Hydrographic Office Coastal Services Technology Sub-Partners: Hjorring Municipality Countries: BE 1 DE 2 NL 1 NO 4 SE 2 UK 3 DK 6 Area of 2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal Intervention: zone management Theme: Interoperable, standardised and adequate tools are important for coastal zone management and maritime safety. In respect to geographic data, it is a fundamental problem that data on the landward side is collected and main-tained by topographic mapping or cadastral agencies utilised primarily for development, nature conservation etc., while sea data is collected by hydrographic survey services, focusing primarily on marine navigation issues. Furthermore, the collaboration between member states at national, regional and local level can be improved. The BLAST project has a primary focus on “Bringing land and sea together”, by harmonizing and integrating data for land and sea. BLAST will in part improve the functionalities of databases, and it will provide input to improve SafeSeaNet. The overall aim of the project is to improve Integrated Coastal Zone Management and Planning (ICZM&P) and maritime safety in a broad sense, by improving and contributing to harmonising terrestrial and sea geographical data and by developing planning and visualisation tools as well as improvement of navigation, in the context of climate change. Expected A prototype marine horizontal reference base in a consistent system for the North Sea area; Results: 3D harbour model of a selected harbour in one of the selected areas; Demonstrate and evaluate the use of 3D visualization/models; A set of strategies based on identified best practises for adaptation to climate change, and experience from testing in municipalities; A web based decision support system for ICZM in transnational context Amount € 2.877.450,00 Granted:

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SUSCOD (Extended) - Priority 2 Lead Province of North-Holland Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Agency for Maritime and Fife Coast and Countryside City of Nordenham Coastal Services - Coastal Trust Division Flanders Hydraulic Research Region of Sjaelland Municipality of Strömstad Essex County Council Sub-Partners: Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Coordination centre for ICZM Local Government Denmark Management, DG for Public Works & Water Management Lolland municipality Slagelse municipality Odsherred municipality Municipality of Tanum Municipality of Sotenäs Municipality of Munkedal County Administration of Municipality of Lysekil Västra Götaland Countries: BE 3 DE 1 NL 4 NO 0 SE 6 UK 2 DK 5 Area of 2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal Intervention: zone management Theme: SUSCOD aims to make a step change in the application of integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). In doing so coastal potentials -economical, social and environmental- can be utilized to full advantage and broader support for coastal management measures can be secured. 7 partners from 5 countries will develop an innovative Integrated Coastal Zone Management (IZCM) ‘assistant’. The ICZM approach has been explored in several parts of the NSR. The focus of these interventions has often been for public safety. Although these interventions have offered opportunities to realise the full development potential of the areas concerned, in practice a fully integrated, holistic approach has rarely been taken. This is regrettable because coastal potentials are not fully utilised. SUSCOD brings together partners that want to change this through a well coordinated transnational team approach. This practical web based tool will allow coastal development practitioners to fully realise coastal potentials: economical, social and environmental. Expected Risk analysis scenario’s + Integrated evacuation and warning system; Inventory and Results: analysis of existing ICZM tools and indicators available; Reviewing the present status of IZCM implementation in the partner regions, including the application of IZCM tools and practical techniques as being applied in the light of challenges imposed by climate changes; Jointly developing a practical and innovative web-based IZCM-assistant for coastal practitioners with stake holder's participation; Multimedia hub and related educational materials: A course for regional and coastal development officers throughout the North Sea Region. Amount € 2.254.052,00 Granted:

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Ballast Water Opportunity (Extended) - Priority 2 Lead Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Bundesamt für Seeschifffarht IMO World Maritime CaTO Marine Ecosystems und Hydrographie University GoConsult DHIGroup Wageningen Imares ImarEST CytoBuoy Zebra BioScience MAHLE NFV GmbH HAMANN AG EnvioMar GmbH University of Newcastle Ovizio Imaging Systems Brockmann consultancy Sub-Partners: University of Kiel Lloyds Register London Llods Register Rotterdam Maritimes GAUSS University of Bergen Forschungszentrum Elsfleth Bundeamt für Umweltbundesambt See Berufsgenossenschaft Risikobewertung Min. of Agriculture and Food Marine Coastguard Agency Min of Transport Safety Swedisch Maritime Safety Mobility, Flemish NATUR omradet, By- og Inspectorate Government Landskabsstyrelsen The Norwegian Maritime Seas at risk IUCN Directorate ICES Wadden Sea Society North Sea Foundation Port of Antwerp Port of Groningen Port of Copenhagen-Malmö Port of Rotterdam Port of Gothenborg KNRV Norwegian Defence NIVA Research Establishment Countries: BE 4 DE 12 NL 13 NO 4 SE 3 UK 4 DK 4 Area of 2.2 Developing preventive and responsive Area of Interventions to address acute and Intervention: chronic marine pollution Theme: Ships’ ballast water is a main source of acute and chronic pollution in the North Sea. The project aims to improve the North Sea environment and economy by facilitating the ratification of the Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC). The implementation of the BWMC creates a new market for innovative products; Ballast Water Opportunity aims to support the NSR industry to enter this market. It encourages the ratification of the BWMC through reducing a major barrier: providing treatment and detection equipment. As a result common certification standards for BWT will be defined, which will stimulate technological development to comply and enforce the BWMC. Expected A public private centre for transfer of knowledge and expertise on Detection of organisms in Results: ballast water, a feasibility of tool development; Information portal on best practice / opportunities for mitigation of marine bio-invasive species and models, recommendations on legislation opportunities Amount € 5.698.719,00 Granted:

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CLIWAT - Priority 2 Lead Central Denmark Region Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: LIAG-institut GEUS Region Syddanmark Geological Survey of the LLUR Environment Centre Aarhus Netherlands Environment Centre Ribe Aarhus Universitet Ghent University Seeconsult Municipality of Horsens BGR VITENS Provincie Fryslan Wetterskip Fryslan Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 4 NL 4 NO 0 SE 0 UK 0 DK 6 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: The project will focus on the effects of climate change on groundwater systems. CLIWAT aims to identify the challenges caused by the higher water levels and to develop climate scenarios focussing on surface water and water supply as well as the impacts on buildings. This will enable the North Sea Region to react more efficiently to the consequences of climate change. The project will build on and improve existing geo-physical methods; these will be tested in the partner regions in order to be able to develop recommendations for the North Sea Region on how to deal with the consequences of increased groundwater levels. Expected New geo- and hydrological tools for evaluation and demonstration of the effects of climate Results: change scenarios for the North Sea region; Extend the knowledge in climate change impacts on the hydrological cycle with emphasis on groundwater influence on dependent aquatic ecosystems in the NSR; Transnational and regional management plan for groundwater protection, considering climate change; 2 and 3D geological models, visualisations; Maps of groundwater table scenarios, maps of flood risk areas; Handbook(s) with maps and Recommendations to better practice in spatial planning / urban development Amount € 2.750.063,00 Granted:

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CPA - Priority 2 Lead Province of Zeeland Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Directorate general of public Municipality Schouwen- Deltares subsurface and works and watermanagement Duiveland groundwater department Zeeland Swedish Geotechnical University of Oldenburg Arvika Kommun Institute County administrative board County Administrative board Swedish Hydrological and of Varmland of Vastra Gotalands Ian Meteorological Institute Ghent University National Trust RSPB Wildlife Trust Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 1 NL 4 NO 0 SE 5 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: CPA aims to create a portfolio of climate adoption strategies for the North Sea region. This will be done by carrying out multi-focused pilot projects across the North Sea Region in order to analyse the impacts of climate changes as a first step. Subsequently, diverse climate adoption strategies will be developed, implemented and tested in order to compile and analyse the findings on a transnational level by developing recommendations for the North Sea Region. In addition, the project will foster political support established by the Memoranding of Understanding (MoU) of the North Sea Commission, triggering future investments on transnational level. Expected National and NSR Climate Change Impact Analysis; Pilots: Agricultural Areas, Onshore and Results: Offshore Approaches, Urban Areas, Nature Conservation and Management, including pilot adaptation measures: feasibility study and pilot implementation plans; An adaptation toolkit for adaptation of measures and strategies; Policy Recommendations to existing adaptation strategies; Foster political support established by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the North Sea Commission, triggering future investments on transnational level Amount € 2.711.442,00 Granted:

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SAWA - Priority 2 Lead Ministry of Urban Development and Environment (LSBG), Agency for Roads, Bridges and Beneficiary: Water Hamburg (LSBG) Beneficiaries: Leuphana Universität HafenCity Universität TU Hamburg-Harburg Lüneburg, Fakultät Umwelt Hamburg und Technik Agriculture Chamber of Province of Flevoland Waterschap Zuiderzeeland Lower Saxony Waterschap Hunze en Aa's Waterschap Noorderzijlvest Waterboard of Delfland Norwegian Water Resources Norwegian University of Melhus Municipality and Energy Directorate Science and Technology Norwegian Metrological County Administrative Board Swedish Meteorological and Institute of Värmland Hydrological Institute County Administrative Board Swedish Geotechnical Karlstad University of Västra Götaland Institute Karlstad City Heriot Watt University University of Edinburgh Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 5 NL 5 NO 4 SE 6 UK 2 DK 0 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: SAWA strives to strengthen the member states for their current implementation of the EU Flood Directive (FD) by developing a transnational implementation strategy. The aim is to adapt existing water management systems to the effects of extreme flood events due to climate change, focusing on sustainable development of society and regional economies. Based on case studies and pilot implementations SAWA will test the new and innovative strategies in Flood Risk Management around the North Sea. The project integrates local, regional and national stakeholders, university and vocational training students, thus the project includes a broad capacity building process incorporating information, education and qualification. Expected Centres for education towards sustainable flood risk management around the North Sea; Results: Adaptive strategy for implementation of Flood Risk Management Plans in the NSR; Decision support database for flood protection measures in the NSR; MSc/postgraduate course on flood risk management; Cost-benefit analyses of measures in relation to adaptive planning strategies to optimize the implementation of Flood Risk Management Plans and River Basin Management Plans Amount € 4.080.000,00 Granted:

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Aquarius - Priority 2 Lead Videncentret for Landbrug (Knowledge Center for Agriculture) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Danish Ministry of the Landwirtschaftskammer Hoogheemraadschap van Environment, Environ-ment Niedersachsen Delfland Centre Aalborg Provincie Drenthe Waterschap Hunze en Aa’s County Governor of Østfold Bioforsk Institute Aberdeenshire Council Macaulay Institute Rural Economy and County administration of Halmstad University Agricultural Society of Halland Halland Regional Development Municipality of Laholm Council Sub-Partners: Von-Thuenen-Institute Landcare North East Countries: BE 0 DE 2 NL 3 NO 2 SE 5 UK 3 DK 2 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: The project focuses on enabling farmers to act successfully as water managers in changing climatic conditions. The project will present water risk management practices that will reduce the consequences of flooding, droughts, water shortage and nutrient transport. The emphasis on the farmer as a water manager is contributing towards implementing EU policies, such as the Water Framework Directive. The final result of the project is a water management concept to use as a manual for farmers and a set of recommendations on future land and water management planning. Expected State of the art on current farming practices, hydrological and ecological studies; Results: Identification of: barriers and opportunities for farmers becoming water managers, future trends and future challenges, key methods to deal with climate change; A water management concept to use as a manual for farmers to work as water managers; Recommendations on future land and water management planning Amount € 2.839.145,00 Granted:

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DiPol - Priority 2 Lead Technical University Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Behörde für Stadtentwicklung Norwegian Geotechnical FH Lübeck und Umwelt (BSU) Institute (NGI) Statens geotekniska institut Vrije Universiteit (VU-IVM) Deltares (SGI) Technical University of University of Gothenburg Albertslund Municipality Denmark (DTU) University of Copenhagen Sub-Partners: Gymnasium Kirchdorf- Elvebakken videregående Hvidovre Forsyning A/S Wilhelmsburg skole (Utilities) Copenhagen municipality Vej Glostrup municipality, Natur Norwegian Climate- and og Park og miljø Pollution Agency (Klif) Hochschule für Angewandte Swedish Environmental Wissenschaften Hamburg Research Institute (IVL) (HAW) Countries: BE 0 DE 5 NL 2 NO 3 SE 3 UK 0 DK 6 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: DiPol aims at identifying impacts and at suggesting measures to reduce adverse consequences of climatic changes for the quality of urban and coastal waters. Hence it will have a direct impact on water quality. A programme tool, (SIMACLIM) that illustrates the impacts of climate changes on water quality and which is able to evaluate consequences of potential measures to help regional and national decision-making to adapt their management to the changing climate will be developed and implemented within the DiPol project. By introducing the results into the level of European policy making, a long term impact on the Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy is expected. Expected Development and implementation of a demonstration and evaluation tool: SIMACLIM Results: through specialized working groups on: Atmospheric pollutants, pathogenic bacteria, dissolved substances; particle bound substances, NSR coastal transport; Development of demonstration scenarios; Establishment of a WEB based knowledge platform on the basis of four case studies “Risk analysis” Amount € 1.997.990,00 Granted:

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MARE - Priority 2 Lead Gemeente Dordrecht Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Waterschap Hollandse Delta Rijkswaterstaat Zuid-Holland Provincie Zuid-Holland Ministerie van Verkeer en Dura Vermeer Business UNESCO-IHE Waterstaat Development Rotherham Metropolitican Sheffield City Councill The University of Sheffield Borough Council Leibniz University of Hannover, Faculty of Hannover Region City of Hannover Architecture and Landscape Environment Department Sciences Technical University Bergen Hamburg-Harburg Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 4 NL 7 NO 1 SE 0 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: Recent flooding has demonstrated the vulnerability of North Sea Region. Municipalities have an urgent need to reduce flood risk, but lack a framework and the resources. The overarching aim of MARE is to enable widespread implementation of local adaptive measures that mitigate flood risk. The project is focusing on developing a transnational methodology to implement urban Flood Risk Management (FRMP) in four countries. The project will thereby support national policy making related to the European Floods Directive and beyond. The main result will be a transnational methodology for FRM planning applicable in urban environments. Expected Learning and Action Alliances for professional stakeholders of Flood Risk Management Results: (FRM); Climate Proofing Toolbox: Flood Risk analysis tool to feed into FRM plans; Hydrological and hydrodynamic models, assessment tools for tangible and non-tangible investments, knowledge based system adaptation measures at building and urban infrastructure levels; Development of FRM plans and investment proposals based on (re)- development projects; Transnational methodology for urban FRM planning Amount € 2.507.750,00 Granted:

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Biochar - Priority 2 Lead Provincie Groningen Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Nutrient Management Productschap Akkerbouw Alterra B.V. Institute HAWK, Hochschule fur Scottish Crop Research Angewandte Wissenschaft University of Edinburgh Institute Und Kunst Riso DTU National EV Institute for Agricultural Universiteit Gent Laboratory for sustainable and Fisheries Research energy BioForsk Norwegian Institute Uppsala University, for Agricultural and Department Eardt Sciences, Environmental Research LUVAL Sub-Partners: Flemish Region Countries: BE 3 DE 1 NL 5 NO 1 SE 1 UK 2 DK 1 Area of 2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate Intervention: Theme: The project concerns BioChar (BC), which is a product of biomass-to-energy processing systems, and has as its aim in raising awareness and building confidence in BC as a way of capturing carbon and increasing soil quality and stability in order to make the soil climate change resilient. The concept of BioChar (BC) is relatively new and only practiced in US, Canada and Australia. In order to keep up with international competition it is mandatory to develop and compile a transnational NSR knowledge base which can be utilized by national and regional authorities, business and general public. Climate change in the North Sea Region is predicted to have a pronounced effect on annual rainfall patterns. Soils, rich in organic matter and biological life, function both as a water buffer during periods of drought and as drainage during periods of heavy rains. Biochar creates a triple win scenario for simultaneously producing bio-energy, permanently sequestering carbon, while increasing crop yields by improving soil and water quality. Expected Joint development and implementation of knowledge and methodological standards on Results: biochar feedstocks, logistics and production; Joint development and implementation of methodological standards on biochar applications for soil quality and fertility improvement; Joint development and implementation of biochar knowledge dissemination strategy for authorities, producers and end-users of biochar; Establishment of a Biochar competence centre in each NSR country; Regional and national policy influence on implementation of biochar use in soils Amount € 2.392.471,00 Granted:

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enerCOAST - Priority 2 Lead Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, COAST - Centre for Environment and Beneficiary: Sustainable Development Research Beneficiaries: Lower Saxony Chamber of Ryfylkekommunane iks Innovatum Technology Park Agriculture CBMI Innovation Centre for Northumberland College Bioenergy and Environmental Technology Sub-Partners: Randers Kommune Norddjurs Kommune Syddjurs Kommune Countries: BE 0 DE 2 NL 0 NO 1 SE 1 UK 1 DK 4 Area of 2.4 Promoting environmentally responsible energy production practices Intervention: Theme: The project focuses on strengthening the regional production of biomass as a source of bio energy. A substantiated and consolidated investment plan based on commercially viable bio-energy supply chains will be presented and implemented. The business model will be applied in parallel to differentiated blue-green energy clusters in the Region and ensure transfer of management expertise between the clusters and identify market interdependences, thereby contributing to their joint co-operative success. The aim is to enable the successful further exploitation of the Region’s blue-green low carbon energy sources by integrating the biomass grower at one end and the energy producer at the other end. Pilot projects on the optimisation of the supply chain will be carried out. ENERcoast will thereby open new sources of bio energy, reduce the regional dependency of energy imports and increase the competitiveness of regional energy producers and to ensure their income on a long run. Expected A North Sea bio energy market network including operative bio energy supply chains; Results: Cross-national adoption of partner solutions via the business model; Implementation of development agendas through commercial mobilisation of bio-energy resources for the NSR; Business model: business optimization strategies and investment plans for bio-energy infrastructure in regions; Bio energy supply chains analysis and mobilization Amount € 1.686.869,00 Granted:

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North Sea – SEP - Priority 2 Lead Jade University of Applied Sciences Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: City of Osterholz- U.A.N. Communal REON AG Scharmbeck Environment Action Dundee College - Aberdeen City Council Construction & Built Edinburgh University Environment Centre Intercommunale Leiedal Imog Provincie Drenthe Energy and Environment Municipality of Energikontor Sydost Centre Varberg/campus varberg Green Network Sub-Partners: Municipality of Worpswede Municipality of Hambergen Municipality of Ritterhude Municiplatity of Grasberg Municipality of Lilienthal Tynaarlo Municipality Hedensted Kommune Vejle Kommune Fredericia Kommune Kolding Kommune Middelfart Kommune Countries: BE 2 DE 8 NL 2 NO 0 SE 3 UK 3 DK 6 Area of 2.4 Promoting environmentally responsible energy production practices Intervention: Theme: During the last years the costs for fossil energy resources are heavily increasing. A possibility to absorb rising costs is to critically question the status quo of energy consumption in order to be able to use existing energy saving potentials. Rising energy costs are contributing to a steadily increasing financial pressure for public utilities. This leads to a negative cycle: the public bodies have a lower budget at hand while at the same time the costs are rising, despite the lower demand. There is no available model showing how to link energy policies with the regional and/or local development. The aim of North Sea - SEP is to foster a future oriented development on regional level by an energy oriented approach. To tackle these problems, the project has to improve local/regional development and the decision making processes by -creating tools for regional planners. Successful reorientation and creation of new profiles like energy regions must consider all actors in a region to involve them in the processes and to create ground for interactive development. Therefore methods and tools for regional planning and decision making will be developed with focus on systematically energy planning. Expected Developing a transnational model for strategic energy planning; Innovative processes for Results: regional development in terms of delivery of energy business cases and models, methods on transnational, regional and local level. Creation of a knowledge based WIKI system to share Case Studies and Best Practices -Development of a new NSR foundation on regional development in the field of energy consumption and renewable energies; Facilitate the set- up of a cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary Triple Helix model of innovation; Delivery of new methods, roadmaps and tools for sustainable energy planning - on-line GIS planning system for renewable energy production Amount € 2.598.225,00 Granted:

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C2CI (Extended) - Priority 2 Lead Province of Fryslân, Department of European Programmes & Projects Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Delft University of Wetsus Watertechnology Vitens Technology Municipality of Ameland Municipality of Texel Wetterskip Fryslân University of Applied PURE Energy Centre Shetland Islands Council Sciences of Zeeland International Resources and EPEA Internationale Municipality of Spiekeroog Recycling Institute Umweltforschung GmbH Oldenburgisch-Ostfriesischer Insel- und Halligkonferenenz Aalborg University Wasserverband Samso Energiakademi Norddjurs Municipality Lund University Storvågan Environmental Municipality of Tjörn Runde Environmental Centre Center Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 4 NL 9 NO 2 SE 2 UK 3 DK 3 Area of 2.4 Promoting environmentally responsible energy production practices Intervention: Theme: The project will focus on the development of new and sustainable energy-related technologies and strategies in islands around the North Sea Region. C2CI will develop and implement the cradle-to-cradle (C2C) methodology for NSR islands, i.e. designing intelligent products and materials that can be used over and over again and thus replace the concept of waste. Three development clusters that focus on sustainable energy in relation to mobility, water and materials will create relevant networks and deliver sustainable innovations for the islands’ environments. Incubator centres on the partner islands will foster further development and implementation. The outcomes will be transferable to the North Sea Region as a whole and beyond. Expected A method of C2C (cradle to cradle) implementation; Three development clusters: Results: Energy/mobility on ‘blue energy’ to produce energy from water, Energy/water: sustainable supply of drinking water, Energy/materials: research centre on biopolymers; Incubator centres on partner islands Amount € 1.972.833,00 Granted:

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Priority 3: Improving the accessibility of places in the NSR

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CARE-North - Priority 3 Lead City of Bremen Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Verkehrsgesellschaft swb AG City of Malmö Bremerhaven AG METRO - West Yorkshire City of Göteborg, Traffic & Integrated Transport Aberdeen City Council Public Transport Authority Authority The Robert Gordon Province of Fryslân University Sub-Partners: ICLEI - Local Governments

for Sustainability Countries: BE 0 DE 4 NL 1 NO 0 SE 2 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies Intervention: Theme: While the NSR deals with the effects of climate change, transport-related CO2 emissions continue to increase. The NSR has potential for innovative transport strategies which could improve the economic performance of its regions and cities in a post-fossil economy. Transnational collaboration will be used in terms of building political support and momentum, as well as in concrete terms of establishing uniform standards and infrastructure across the region. CARE-North has developed and will implement innovative carbon reduction strategies for urban and regional transport to maintain and improve accessibility in a more carbon-responsible way, and to make the NSR dominant in carbon- efficient accessibility. Expected Development of a “Joint political memorandum” of the CARE-North partner sites. Results: Presentation of the CARE-North philosophy in appropriate way - on Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (e.g. in joint action with GTZ), December 2009 - to North Sea Commission / Sustainable Development Group; Increased knowledge and experience necessary for large-scale introduction of electric vehicles. Found a solid knowledge base for further activities in partner cities and beyond and accelerate the development, introduction and market acceptability of electric vehicles Amount € 2.401.418,00 Granted:

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CRUISE GATEWAY - Priority 3 Lead Hafen Hamburg Marketing e.V. Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Columbus Cruise Center Bremen Senate Department Port of Kiel Bremerhaven for Economy and Ports Cruise Destination City of Gothenburg Copenhagen Malmö Port AB Hardangerfjord Port of Esbjerg City of Antwerp/Tourism Port of Oostende Cruise Port Rotterdam Essex County Council Aberdeenshire Council Shipbuilders & Shiprepairers

Association Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 2 DE 3 NL 1 NO 1 SE 2 UK 3 DK 1 Area of 3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies Intervention: Theme: Cruise Gateway will increase the maritime accessibility by developing the NSR as a cruise destination of its own and promoting it as a "lighthouse" for sustainable cruise. Main outputs are the creation of a brand for cruise in the NSR, the improvement of service quality in ports and environmentally friendly economic growth. Within the work packages, the brand will be jointly designed and best practices for a NSR cruise cycle will be identified and transferred. Cruise Gateway, at the end of the day, will have launched the “Green Cruise North Sea” and will have opened up "white spots", thus attracting more and new cruise passenger consumer groups to the NSR ports and their hinterland. Expected Creation of the brand ‘Green Cruise North Sea’; Establish a marketing strategy and base- Results: line study to strengthen the touristic potential of cruise tourism; Develop policy blueprints and dissemination in the Policy Forum; Improve of service quality in ports; Deliver and transfer best practices regarding passenger transport, sustainability and services; Environmental certificates for environmental-friendliness of cruise ships. Amount € 939.625,00 Granted:

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iTransfer - Priority 3 Lead Institute for Sustainibility (IfS) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: South East of Scotland Gravesham Borough Council Transport Partnership Rederij Doeksen SESTRAN Damen Shipyards Gorinchem Magistrat Bremerhaven Weserfähre Kent County Council Stagecoach Sönderborg Port of Oostende Terschelling City Council Rijkswaterstaat BIS - Bremerhaven Touristik Sub-Partners: Hal-Över Helgoland Countries: BE 1 DE 5 NL 4 NO 0 SE 0 UK 6 DK 1 Area of 3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies Intervention: Theme: Improving water-based public transport is a key issue in the NSR to safeguard sustainable accessibility of regions which would otherwise be inaccessible or suffering from their remote location. The iTransfer partners pursue an implementation-oriented TOP approach to improve water-based accessibility by fostering development of Technology (ferries & landings), Operation (integration with public transport & set-up of ferry connections) and addressing Policy issues (tendering of ferry services & barrier-free access for disabled people) on the national and EU level. Expected Installation and launch of an innovative accessible NSR ferry-landing and a sustainable Results: standard NSR ferry operating with liquefied natural gas (LNG); Set-up of new ferry connections; A joint knowledge base on ferry operation; Improve accessibility of places, higher sustainability of passenger transport and increase efficiency of public transport systems. Amount € 2.287.825,00 Granted:

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Green Airports - Priority 3 Lead Province of Drenthe Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: International Airport Kortrijk- East of England Groningen Airport Eelde NV Welvegem Development Agency (EEDA) South East England London Southend Airport Co. Development Agency Kent County Council Ltd. (SEEDA) Sandefjord Lufthavn AS Billund Lufthavn A/S Flughafen Bremen GmbH Zweckverband Der Senator für Wirtschaft Der Senator für Umwelt, Bau, Verkehrsverbund und Häfen Verkehr und Europa Bremen/Niedersachsen Verkehrsverbund Bremen/Niedersachsen Bremer Straßenbahn AG Vestfold County Council GmbH Region Syddanmark Sub-Partners: Thomas Cook Airlines Billund Municipality Billund Varmeværk Amba Scandinavia A/S Countries: BE 1 DE 6 NL 2 NO 2 SE 0 UK 4 DK 5 Area of 3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies Intervention: Theme: Small and medium sized airports are crucial for regional accessibility and competitiveness, however at the same time European policies and national set strict environment targets. Green Airports aims to develop strategies and solutions for a more eco-efficient, sustainable and green regional aviation. Tackling the challenges of regional accessibility, sustainability and regulation Green Airports is modelled to decrease green house gas and noise emissions as well as operation specific waste volumes, to increase energy efficiency and surface accessibility of airports by innovative concepts on public transportation. As cross sectional objective the project comprehensively focuses on regional airport communication, regional cooperation and policy resolutions to safeguard the role of regional airports as accessibility gateways by improving public perception and acceptance Expected North Sea sustainability strategy for aviation, including toolkits for renewable energy Results: implementation and chemical reduction, models for CO2 reduction on airports and passenger movements; Recommendations for aviation organisations and aviation authorities; Promote policy resolutions on green air transport and surface accessibility on regional, national and European policy level; Model for implementation of CO2 reducing flight approaches on SMAs; Network of Green Airport involved organisations Amount € 1.942.823,00 Granted:

35 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

StratMoS (Extended) - Priority 3 Lead Rogaland County Council Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Møre and Romsdal County Vest-Agder County Council Telemark County Council Council The Norwegian Barents Møregruppen Finnmark County Council Secretariat Norwegian Coastal FDT - Association of Danish Troms County Council Administration Transport Centres Hamburg Ministry for Hafen Hamburg Marketing Hamburg University of Economic and Labour Affairs e.V. Technology (TUHH) Flemish Ministry of Mobility Port of Amsterdam ans Public Works - Ports and Sequoyah NV Water Policy Devision ICSO Porthus Logit Systems Siemens Building University of Hull Logistics MSC Belgium NV Technologies Institute Aberdeenshire Council Aberdeen City Council Napier University Scrabster Harbour Trust Samskip Port of Narvik Norwegian School of Nor-Cargo UK Ltd. Hordaland County Council Management Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 6 DE 3 NL 2 NO 12 SE 0 UK 6 DK 1 Area of 3.2 To promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors Intervention: Theme: The project aims to promote and facilitate the shift of cargo from road to sea based intermodal transport. STRATMOS strives to improve accessibility within the North Sea Region by supporting the implementation of the Motorways of the Sea concept and related transport networks in integrated logistical chains. On the strategic level, the project intends to provide input for the Master Plan to be developed by the North Sea MoS Task Force as well as to EU entities. On the implementation level practical demonstration projects will be carried out in order to demonstrate actions to be taken by public and private actors to improve the effectiveness of inter-modal transport, in particular related to hubs and hinterland connections. Expected Transnational solutions for ‘invisible’ intermodal transport (pilot trials, recommendations on Results: intra-port traffic, technology related change management); Recommendations for efficient hubs, hinterland connections and on intra-port traffic; ICSO platform for container monitoring; ICT platform for cargo operations; Strategies for connecting transport networks and corridors; Develop functional concepts for connecting transport networks, comprising hubs and transport axes / corridors, by defining requirements for investments in infrastructure and facilities; A system model of MoS and intermodal transport; Guideline MoS strategic demonstration project; Tools for MoS (Motorways of the Seas) Application; MoS integrated dry port concept and hub concepts; System model of MoS and intermodal transport; Strategies for connecting transport networks and corridors Amount € 2.878.106,00 Granted:

36 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Food Port - Priority 3 Lead POM West-Vlaanderen Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Port of Kristiansund and University of Hull Logistics Region Västra Götaland Nordmøre IMC Technology Group South Holland District University of Southern VOKA Chamber of Council Denmark Commerce West-Flanders South East Scotland Port of Zeebrugge Port of Oostende Transport Partnership (SEStran) Chalmers University of Port of Göteborg AB Port of Esbjerg technology The Development Council of Port of Odense South Jutland Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 3 DE 0 NL 0 NO 1 SE 3 UK 3 DK 4 Area of 3.2 To promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors Intervention: Theme: Food Port aims to develop the North Sea Region (NSR) as the best food cluster and hub in Europe for food products delivered via efficient and sustainable transport systems e.g. ‘green transport corridors’. Food Port brings together local authorities, knowledge organisations, food industries and ports from 5 countries to find practical solutions to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the food supply chains.

The project will investigate and develop green transport corridors for food products between regions around the North Sea. This will lead to concrete modal shift pilots along the identified green transport corridors and to the development of (new) food platforms or hubs. In order to improve the food-logistic chains, new technological solutions will be incorporated, such as a technical support platform. Expected Realisation of a minimum of 5 modal shift pilots for selected green transport corridors for Results: food products; Data sets for the food supply chain and appropriate ICC-technologies; Strategic masterplan for the further development and realisation of food hubs and distribution centres; Regional food logistic action plan/transnational logistic action plan; Market inventory on inter/intra oriented regional food products flows. Amount € 2.233.072,00 Granted:

37 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

LO-PINOD - Priority 3 Lead Institute for Sustainability (IfS) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Peel Land and Property South East of Scotland (Ports) Ltd - Port of Forth Ports Transport Partnership Sheerness Ridham Sea Terminals Ltd AG Port Ostende Port of Drammen Port of Bodö Harlingen Seaport Municipality of Meppel Cuxport GmbH Port of Karlshamn Port of Esbjerg Provincie Drenthe Port of Hanstholm Brunsbüttel Ports GmbH Kilbride Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 2 NL 3 NO 2 SE 1 UK 7 DK 2 Area of 3.2 To promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors Intervention: Theme: LO-PINOD aims to enhance multi-modal accessibility and interconnectivity of ports of regional importance. The project will focus on three aspects: INLAND - A transnational investment preparation approach for inland connections will trigger significant investments and allow assessing suitability of existing national and EU policies and improving them; PORTS - Building a joint knowledge platform, capacities & procedures will enhance cooperation of regional ports; SEASIDE - Research into market potential and set up of new short sea shipping and feeder connections will improve seaside accessibility.

Expected Investment initiation for multi-modal inland connections of regional NSR ports; Upgraded Results: skills & a staff knowledge pool of LO-PINOD ports; Set-up of new transport connections and integrate new port services into the EU multi-modal network; Incresed strategic support on the national and EU policy level

Amount € 4.020.300,00 Granted:

38 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Dryport (Extended) - Priority 3 Lead Region Västra Götaland, Regionutvecklingssekretariatet Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Trafikverket Region Västra falköpings kommun Port of Göteborg Sverige Kamer van Koophandel West Trafikverket Region Väst Port of Zeebrugge Vlaanderen Essex County Council for SEStran partnership Babergh District Council Haven Gateway Transport Research Institute Gemeente Emmen Provincie Friesland TRI Edinburgh NAPIER University Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft,

Universität Bremen Sub-Partners: Provincie Drente Gemeente Coevorden Countries: BE 2 DE 1 NL 4 NO 0 SE 6 UK 4 DK 0 Area of 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions Intervention: Theme: The project’s aim is to develop, design and set effective Hinterland inter-modal freight transport nodes – dryports – which are fully integrated with the Gateway freight handling systems, to adapt a public concept to a private sector model, and to integrated dryports into the EU Motorways of the Sea concept. The project includes the identification of suitable dryport land sites in the North Sea Region, to start a planning process that will support the increased number of logistics hubs, to assess the environmental and socio-economic impact of improved inter-modality, to develop a business model blueprint and to develop and start- up a IT system. All project activities will contribute to connecting the dryports with the short sea shipping system to shift interregional transport from road to sea. Expected Three dryports set up in cooperation with gateways; Gateway with a hinterland dryport Results: structure; Transformation of hinterland hubs towards dryports; Monitoring-Instruments for gateway-hinterland movements; Research material on rail potentials; Estimation of CO2 claims of various modes of transport; Motorway of the Sea scheme Amount € 2.766.745,00 Granted:

39 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

NS FRITS - Priority 3 Lead People United Against Crime Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: The Netherland's National Volvo Technology Avanti Communications Ltd Police Agency Corporation Bremen Senator for The University of Hull, Humberside Police Education and Science Logistics Institute Avonwood Developments ACPO Vehicle Crime University of Huddersfield, Limited (withdrawn from the Intelligence Service - AVCIS Applied Criminology Centre project) Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 0 DE 1 NL 1 NO 0 SE 1 UK 7 DK 0 Area of 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions Intervention: Theme: The project addresses efficiency and effectiveness of the North Sea Region transport freight. To secure the NSR as a global competitor, the project develops an intelligent transport solution (ITS), which will improve accessibility, reduce environmental damage in the North Sea Region and enable the NSR to develop a dynamic logistics solution which is scalable across the EU. As the main result, the project will develop a multi-lingual electronic communication and data capture system for the freight supply chain to provide information to end users, transport managers, freight handlers about the conditions in the area that they are about to enter. Thereby the project aims to improve efficiency, safety and security in the supply chain of the NSR and promotes the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions. Expected A multi-lingual electronic communication and data capture system for the freight supply Results: chain to provide information to end users/drivers, fleet/transport managers, freight handlers about the conditions in the area that they are about to enter; Three pilot projects to test the violability and effectiveness of the communications system; Recommendations to regional and national level entities and other potential stakeholders; Valuable information for freight supply chain making the sector better able to plan and manage their business operations including traffic flow, efficiency, safety and security issues Amount € 2.458.460,00 Granted:

40 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

CLEAN NORTH SEA SHIPPING (CNSS) - Priority 3 Lead Hordaland County Council Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Ministry of Urban Shipbuilders & Shiprepairers Port of Antwerp Development and Association Environment University of Newcastle upon BKK Gasnor AS Tyne Institute for Coastal DCMR Environmental Research, Helmholtz- Germanischer Lloyd Protection Agency Zentrum Geesthacht MARIKO Maritimes Harlingen Seaport Groningen Seaports Kompetenzzentrum Leer GmbH Bergen kommune Port of Bergen Authority Stadtwerke Lübeck Gmbh Swedish Marine Technology Port of Gothenburg Forum Sub-Partners: Telemark fylkeskommune Countries: BE 1 DE 5 NL 3 NO 6 SE 2 UK 2 DK 0 Area of 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions Intervention: Theme: CNSS will focus on emission and greenhouse gas reduction from ships, using studies to reveal the status of air quality in ports and surrounding areas. The partnership of CNSS (ports, business, regions, public authorities, NGOs, research institutes) will change this by creating transparency on cost-efficient technology solutions and develop and improve the introduction of successful air quality programs. The present challenge is to develop and implement environmentally friendly, cost-effective concepts and practical solutions in line with upcoming standards. Promoting the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions, the maritime transport system (ships, ports and surrounding areas) will step into a transition processes to meet the demands of enlargement and sustainable development at the same time Expected Joint manual on using different Air Quality Programmes; Joint North Sea Shipping Strategy; Results: Develop a joint “Environmental Statement”; Joint guideline on implementation towards cleaner shipping; Study on impact of future ship emission scenarios; Show case of harmonised monitoring/simulation in 2/4 ports. Amount € 2.065.069,00 Granted:

41 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

E-Harbours - Priority 3 Lead Municipality of Zaanstad Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Municipality of Amsterdam VITO Port of Antwerp Hamburg University of City of Malmo Uddevalla Energy Applied Siences Robert Gordon University PURE Energy Centre Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 2 DE 1 NL 1 NO 0 SE 2 UK 2 DK 0 Area of 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions Intervention: Theme: E-Harbours aims to create a lasting change towards sustainable energy logistics for NSR harbour cities. It will set innovative energy standards to create a transformation of the energy network in harbour areas. Show cases will provide examples for the NSR, guided by a European expert platform. By this the project will implement EU energy policies, develop innovative solutions and allow economic growth. Innovation in different fields and an integrated approach are strongly needed. Smart energy networks and electric mobility are both vital aspects and strongly related to each other. The partnership consists of key organizations to create a change: public authorities, municipal harbour/energy companies and national knowledge centres from the NSR. Expected Implement 7 innovative show cases in the participating harbour areas; Create a Virtual Results: Power Plant (VPP): transnational methodology for optimal integration of renewable energy sources in a highly energy intensive harbour cities; Create a framework (technical, economical, organizational) for large scale implementation of E-Harbours in the NSR Amount € 2.410.060,00 Granted:

42 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Priority 4: Promoting sustainable and competitive communities

43 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

DC NOISE - Priority 4 Lead Region of Twente Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Province of Zeeland Province of Groningen Province of West-Flanders Freie und Hansestadt Province of East-Flanders Knutepunkt Sorlandet Hamburg Kommunalverbund University of Abertay Dundee Niedersachsen / Bremen Sub-Partners: Senator für Umwelt, Bau, ERSV Oost-Vlaanderen ERSV West-Vlaanderen Verkehr und Europa Bremen Johann Daniel Lawaetz PlusPunkt GmbH Foundation Countries: BE 4 DE 5 NL 3 NO 1 SE 0 UK 1 DK 0 Area of 4.1 Tackling the needs of areas in decline Intervention: Theme: DC NOISE aims to deal with demographic change related issues, namely labour market, service provision and housing issues by developing transferable action strategies in the North Sea Region. The project activities include the creation of a transnational housing atlas which contributes to the implementation of transferable and innovative housing approaches and a regional level statistical monitoring system including demographic data and indicators, as well as themes such as ‘DC and the impact on the labour market for higher educated’, the introduction of a ‘housing ambassador’ approach and researching and communicating ‘day to day Information & Communication Technology for people with a mobility handicap’. All activities contribute to finding mechanisms to reduce job, service and population loss and to promote attractive regions supported by concrete measures to raise the awareness of demographic change in the North Sea Region. Expected Transnational housing atlas; new housing concepts for elderly; Monitoring system on Results: demographic change (DC); Regional level statistical monitoring system including demographic data and indicators; Improved infrastructure for elderly, ICT solutions for service provision for handling and analysing data in relation to monitoring the consequences of demographic change; An integrated monitoring system on demographic change; Analysis of the consequences of demographic change; A transnational scenario-logbook; New strategies to cope with demographic change, such as integration methods for elderly (50+), higher integration- and employment rates, re-education and recruitment of economically vulnerable employees, including youngsters and immigrants and Strategic document with best practices and advice to influence EU labour market policies Amount € 3.057.654,00 Granted:

44 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

VITAL - Priority 4 Lead NOFA Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Streekplatform + Meetjesland Norfolk County Council Province of Fryslân Wirtschaftsakademie Stadt Langenhagen Vejen Kommune Schleswig Holstein GmbH Municipality of Sluis Rogaland Fylkeskommune Finnoy Kommune Friese Poort Intercommunale Leiedal Province of West-Flanders Bedrijfsopleidingen Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 3 DE 2 NL 3 NO 2 SE 0 UK 1 DK 1 Area of 4.1 Tackling the needs of areas in decline Intervention: Theme: The project will consider three themes connected to rural development; lack of economic development and innovations, negative or insufficient exposure of regions and downsizing in level of services and amenities. Using a co-operative agreement approach the project partners will work together on a number of pilot initiatives to consider these issues in a transnational setting. The partnership will be supported by a scientific support group, made up of universities and a national authority. The end result of the project will be a Rural Power Pack, which will be disseminated and communicated at EU level and to other European Regions. Expected Empowered SMEs in rural areas and a transferable working method on how to empower Results: SMEs; Branding of the region (incl. design, testing, communication and implementation of brand); Transnational method on how to brand a region; Optimized social services and local facilities in peripheral areas, transferable working method on how to optimized social services Amount € 3.770.170,00 Granted:

45 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

MP4 - Priority 4 Lead Sheffield City Council (South Yorkshire Forest Partnership) Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: HafenCity Universitat Lawaetz Foundation Gemeente Emmen Hamburg HCU Hamburg Vlaamse Landmaatschappij Göteborgs Stad University of Sheffield Heriot-Watt University University of Copenhagen Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 2 NL 1 NO 0 SE 1 UK 2 DK 1 Area of 4.2 Promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas Intervention: Theme: MP4 focuses on innovative approaches for planning and designing, maintaining and using public places. The project aim is to demonstrate how open space improvements offer positive socio-economic benefits, and how the benefits offered to key communities can be maintained in the long run (‘place-keeping’). In cooperation with key EU policymakers and networks, the project activities illustrate support for greater interaction between all those involved in the open space management process. The project will create and promote model agreements for partnerships and social enterprises and implement 8 urban regeneration projects. As an end result the project will develop an EU-level Agenda for place-keeping and mainstream best practice across the North Sea Region. Expected Defining, testing and implementing ‘open space’ improvements offers for positive socio- Results: economic benefits embracing private enterprises, communities and government, Deliver an EU Agenda for place-keeping, Influence cohesion policies to mainstream place-keeping best practice, Assess existing place-keeping experiences, Produce and implement model agreements, 8 urban regeneration projects, covering areas such as construction, green infra-structures, master planning and Evaluation of transnational impacts and transferability of the ‘on-ground’ of ‘open space’ improvements (economic, social and environmental impacts) Amount € 2.913.771,00 Granted:

46 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

CA! (Extended) - Priority 4 Lead Hordaland Fylkeskommune Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: North Jutland Halland Rogaland County Council Sogn og Fjordane CC Norfolk County Council Region Syddanmark Møre og Romsdal CC Kragerø District Council Sjælland Region North York Moors National Vest Agder County Council Province of Fryslan Park Authority Province of Zeeland Sub-Partners: Province of Groningen Province of Noord Holland Province of South Holland Stichting Wandelplatform Lansdchapsbeheer Friesland Sund Kommune LAW Danish Forest& Nature Visit Nordjylland Friluftsrådet Vest Agency, Nordjylland Lincolnshire County Counci Syddansk Turism Sydvestjysk Udviklingsforum Countries: BE 0 DE 0 NL 7 NO 10 SE 1 UK 3 DK 7 Area of 4.2 Promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas Intervention: Theme: The project activities consider cultural and natural heritage, as a means to improve public health, the development of SME's and the demographic profile of the region. Nature tourism grows three times faster than the sector as a whole. The project builds on the results of two former Interreg IIIB project; Nave Nortrail and Cycle-on, using the trails set up by these projects as a basis for activity. The work will be supported by three universities, the UK organisations, Federation of Small Business and British Ramblers Association, the North Sea Commission and a Political forum. The projects results (toolkit) will be promoted through the projects own website and also the North Sea Commission website. The work will strengthen the link between cultural and natural heritage and leisure on the one hand and economic development on the other to ensure that any increase of interest is managed sustainability. Expected A web based North Sea coastal Assets Collection and new web tools to promote health and Results: outdoor life; Toolkit to create a series of templates for initiatives generated through the project to increase outdoor activity; Stimulate the growth of small businesses through an increase number of people participating in outdoor life; Stimulate the growth of small businesses through an increase number of people participating in outdoor life; Cooperation with the North Sea Commission and national organizations to promote health and outdoor activities to be used as economic drivers Amount € 1.696.450,00 Granted:

47 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

SURF - Priority 4 Lead Aberdeen City Council Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: City of Enschede Saxion University City of Almelo School of the Built City of Hengelo Environment Leeds City of Bradford Metropolitan University Province of East Flanders Provice of West Flanders City of Hamburg Norfolk County Council Municipality of Härryda Province of Antwerp Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 3 DE 1 NL 4 NO 0 SE 1 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 4.2 Promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas Intervention: Theme: SURF focuses on the urban fringe (social /economic/environmental) and developing instruments in which to manage a sustainable urban frindge (UF). In addition, the project aims to put the UF higher on the political agenda within the partner regions, at national and regional governments and at EU level. In most cases the UFs act as the hinterland of the urban centres, are of complex shape with a scattered landscape, administratively fragmented & don’t have distinct identity. UFs are the areas under pressure facing unsustainable growth & expansion. The cities and urban fringes can not be considered in isolation & therefore there is a need of greater integration between various policies and programmes at local, regional & national level to make the urban fringes challenging and more attractive. The partnership brings together various partners across the NSR and city region which would not have been possible with out the support from the programme. Expected A set of integrated policy guidelines and approaches towards UF planning, management Results: and development; Hands on insights in & recommendations on the governance of UF as key component of city regions; Leave a legacy of rigorous and accessible learning on the UF; Transnational exchange of knowledge & experience creating an open dialogue & disseminating information on innovative ideas & achievements Amount € 2.276.698,00 Granted:

48 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

Waterways for Growth (WfG) (Extended) - Priority 4 Lead British Waterways Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Telemark Fylkeskommune Lansstyrelsen Varmland City of Karlstad BIS Bremerhaven Touristik Gemeente Emmen Gemeente Langedijk Stichting Recreatietoervaart City of Bradford Metropolitan Toerisme Scheldeland Nederland District Council Forshaga Municipality Grums Municipality Hammarö Municipality Kils Municipality Province of West Flanders Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 2 DE 1 NL 3 NO 1 SE 6 UK 3 DK 0 Area of 4.2 Promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas Intervention: Theme: To take forward opportunities afforded by recreational inland waterways for the development and realisation of business opportunities and creating attractive places near where people live and work. The project will work by implementing a number of themed initiatives on business and product development, waterway regeneration and the sustainable management of waterway resource the results of which will be fed into a Framework for the Sustainable Development of Inland Waterways. The framework will be supported by a Political Reference Group and will be presented to EU commissioner (Regional Policy and Transport) and the North Sea Commission for consideration. Expected A framework for the sustainable development of inland waterways; New and expanded Results: businesses based on waterways; A common approach to regenerate historic waterways; Extension of the network of recreational waterways; New approaches to further develop the sustainable development of waterways Amount € 1.796.561,00 Granted:

49 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

ANSWER - Priority 4 Lead Suffolk County Council Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Suffolk Chamber of Ipswich Borough Council Norfolk County Council Commerce, Industry and Shipping Incorporated Provinciale Provinciale Environment Agency Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij West-Vlaanderen Oost-Vlaanderen Bremen, Senate for Environment, Construction, Bremer Energie-Konsens RKW Bremen GmbH Transport and European Affairs (SUBVE) Växjö kommun Stavanger Kommune Rogaland Fylkeskommune Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 2 DE 3 NL 0 NO 2 SE 1 UK 5 DK 0 Area of 4.3 Promoting energy efficiency in settlements Intervention: Theme: The 2007 "Energy Policy for Europe" targets towards improving energy efficiency by 20% by 2020. The ANSWER project aims to contribute to this policy by reducing energy use. The project will promote the reduction of carbon emissions through increased energy efficiency amongst businesses and communities within the North Sea Region. The project calls for promoting changes in practice by addressing attitudes and behaviour of businesses and societies, therefore leading to a reduction in energy use (and hence in carbon footprint). The project will develop a Climate Barometer Monitoring Tool which will be used to monitor and visualise the real time energy and climate performance of the participating communities and SMEs. Expected The project will develop ways to promote and increase energy efficient consumption Results: patterns in: Society, working with communities and businesses to engage and empower them to increase energy efficiency; Establish the partner regions as a centre of excellence for energy efficiency; Develop a Climate Barometer Monitoring Tool which will be used to monitor and visualise the real-time energy and climate performance of the participating communities and SMEs Amount € 1.799.294,00 Granted:

50 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme Appendix 6

BwC - Priority 4 Lead Västra Götalandsregionen, Miljösekretariatet Beneficiary: Beneficiaries: Southend-on-Sea Bourough Dundee College University of East Anglia Council West Suffolk College Provincie Oost Vlaanderen Gemeente Groningen Innovationsstiftung Provincie Groningen Gemeente Noord-Beveland Schleswig-Holstein AZB Ausbildungszentrum Staatliche Gewerbeschule für TUHH Bau in Hamburg GmbH Bautechnik (G19) Internationale Bau ZEBAU Zentrum für Energie, Bremer Energie-Konsens ausstellung IBA Hamburg Bauen, Architektur und GmbH GmbH Umwelt Stadt Oldenburg Aberdeen City Council Sub-Partners: Countries: BE 1 DE 8 NL 3 NO 0 SE 1 UK 5 DK 0 Area of 4.3 Promoting energy efficiency in settlements Intervention: Theme: The aim of the Build with Care project is to mainstream energy-efficient building design by raising the awareness and increasing the knowledge of the potential of energy savings. In collaboration with the building sector, a transnational strategy for increasing energy efficiency in buildings will be developed. Within the project, an education and information programme will be carried out to change behaviour in the complete building chain (from consumer to planner, from carpenter to architect) aiming at setting up a transnational knowledge and information network. Expected Demonstration objects of low energy buildings in the NSR, University of Anglia, Arts Centre, Results: Nature Reserve Visitor Centre. The aim is to mainstream energy-efficient building design. The demonstration objects will show examples of low energy buildings in each region as transnational demonstration objects. Promotion of design with positive input ventilation systems integral to heating and cooling that will provide healthy door environments. BwC will contribute to the preparation of a new EU building directive in 2008/2009; Analysis on transnational level of energy efficiency of building designs, incl. life-cycle carbon impact analysis relating to components, system, methodologies and design approaches; Local and regional strategies to deliver energy efficient building for the NSR; Skills trainings, education packages for craftsmen on how to produce energy-efficient housing. An extensive transnational education and information programme will be carried out to change behaviour in the complete building; Influence debate on forthcoming EU directive on energy building. Amount € 3.709.876,00 Granted:

51 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

OVERVIEW OF POLICY FRAMEWORKS AND FUNDING PROGRAMMES RELEVANT FOR THE NSR Review of EU initiatives with connection to the future North Sea Region Programme

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available

PROGRAMMES INNOVATION FP7 Research Funding 2007-2013 Four specific programmes: Commission http://europa.eu.int/ Framework programme 1. Cooperation: proposal comm/research/pre Programme Expected to gain European leadership in key areas through co-operation of currently under ss/2005/pr0704- budget industry and research institutions. Support will be given to discussion in 2en.cfm EUR research activities carried out in trans-national cooperation, from Parliament and 67.8bn collaborative projects and networks to the coordination of national Council research programmes.

2. Ideas: To strengthen the excellence of our science base by fostering competition at European level. An autonomous European Research Council will be created to support “frontier research” carried out by research teams, either individually or in partnership, competing at European level, in all scientific and technological fields, including engineering, socio-economic sciences and the humanities.

3. People: To reinforce career prospects and mobility for researchers. Activities supporting individual researchers, (“Marie Curie” actions), will be reinforced with the aim of strengthening the human potential of European research through support to training, mobility and the development of European research careers.

4. Capacities: To develop research capacities: research infrastructures; regional research driven clusters; stimulating the research potential in the EU’s “convergence” regions; clustering regional actors in research to develop “regions of knowledge”; research for and by SMEs; “science in society” issues; “horizontal” activities of international co-operation. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available Competitiveness Framework 2007-2013 Three specific programmes: Combines Currently under http://europa.eu.int/ and Innovation Programme Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme several existing discussion in comm/enterprise/e Framework > EUR 4bn ICT Policy Support Programme EU activities Parliament and nterprise_policy/cip Programme in total Intelligent Energy Programme Framework for 3 Council /index_en.htm programmes (cf. themes) Entrepreneurship Funding 2007-2013 Support of SMEs by providing access to finance: sharing risks Part of Currently under http://europa.eu.int/ and Innovation programme and rewards with private equity investors and providing co- Competitiveness discussion in comm/enterprise/e Programme guarantees to national guarantee schemes and Innovation Parliament and nterprise_policy/cip Exchange of best practice between member states and Framework Council /index_en.htm#entr evidence (innovation trendchart, innobarometer, innovation Programme scoreboard) brings together activities from the Multiannual Programme for Enterprise and Entrepreneurshi p (MAP), activities for Industrial Competitiveness , the eco- innovation part of the LIFE- Environment programme, and innovation activities under the Research Framework Programme Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available ICT Policy Funding 2007-2013 Stimulate the new converging markets for electronic networks, Part of Currently under http://europa.eu.int/ Support programme media content and digital technologies Competitiveness discussion in comm/enterprise/e Programme EUR 728m Test solutions to the bottlenecks that delay wide European and Innovation Parliament and nterprise_policy/cip deployment of electronic services Framework Council /index_en.htm#ict Support the modernization of public sector services that will Programme raise productivity and improve services http://europa.eu.int/ programme will information_society build on the aims /activities/eten/new of the e-TEN, sroom/programme/f Modinis and e- ramework/index_en Content .htm programmes in line with the new integrated strategy i2010 - European Information Society 2010. eContent Plus Funding 2005-2008 to tackle organisational barriers and promote take up of approved http://europa.eu.int/ programme leading-edge technical solutions to improve acessibility and information_society EUR 149m usability of digital material in a multilingual environment. /activities/econtent addresses specific market areas where development has been plus/index_en.htm slow: geographic content (as a key constituent of public sector content), educational content, cultural, scientific and scholarly content. ENVIRONMENT Sixth 2002-2012 Preparation of seven thematic strategies: Cf. Thematic Adopted in http://www.europa. Environmental Air Pollution (adopted 21/09/2005) Strategies on air 2002 eu.int/comm/enviro Action Programme Prevention and Recycling of Waste (adopted 21/12/2005) pollution, waste, nment/newprg/inde Protection and Conservation of the Marine Environment marine x.htm (adopted 24/10/2005) environment, Soil soil, sustainable Sustainable Use of Pesticides use of resources Sustainable Use of Resources (adopted 21/12/2005) and the urban Urban Environment environment

‘Intelligent Energy Funding 2007-2013 Promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources Part of Currently under http://europa.eu.int/ Europe’ programme through projects and other actions: Competitiveness discussion in comm/energy/intelli Programme EUR 250m New and renewable energy sources (ALTENER) and Innovation Parliament and gent/index_en.html grant rate Energy efficiency, notably in buildings and industry (SAVE) Framework Council usually 50% Energy aspects of transport (STEER) Programme Cooperation with developing countries (COOPENER) Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available LIFE+ Funding 2007-2013 Objective: 6th Currently under http://europa.eu.int/ programme Contribute to the development and implementation of EU Environmental discussion in comm/environment ca. EUR environment policy and legislation, thus contributing to sustainable Action Parliament and /life/news/futureoflif 2,2bn development under the 6th EAP priorities: climate change; nature Programme Council e.htm and biodiversity; environment & health; sustainable use of resources; strategic approaches to policy development; implementation and enforcement (incl. EIA and SEA); ex-post evaluation of Community environmental policy measures Priorities: Implementation and governance (75-80% of budget) contribute to the development and demonstration of innovative policy approaches and instruments, contribute to consolidating the knowledge base for the development, assessment, monitoring and evaluation of environmental policy and legislation, support the design and implementation of approaches to monitoring and assessment of the state of the environment and the drivers, pressures and responses that impact on it, facilitate the implementation of Community environment policy, with a particular emphasis on implementation at local and regional level, provide support for better environmental governance, broadening stakeholder involvement, including that of non-governmental organisations, in policy consultation and implementation. Information and Communication (20-25% of budget) disseminate information and raise awareness on environmental issues, provide support for accompanying measures (information, communication actions and campaigns, conferences, etc). Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available ACCESSIBILITY QuickStart Ca. EUR 60 Until 2010 Programme identifies key areas for investment in network and TEN http://europa.eu.int/ Programme bn until knowledge that can be under way in three years. Projects cover: Structural Funds eur- 2010 lex/en/com/rpt/200 1) Investing in networks 3/com2003_0690e QuickStart Transport projects: segments of TEN-T segments, n01.pdf mainly cross-border rail connections, sea and inland waterways or road links interconnecting with other networks such as the “motorways of the sea” Support of Galileo Satellite navigation system 17 Potential Quick-Start Energy links (from energy TENs proposals) 3 Broadband QuickStart projects: digital divide project (remote and rural areas), Mobile Communication and technologies project (research on the introduction of 3G mobile communication systems); ICT-based research network infrastructure project (upgrading the Géant network connecting universities and research centres)

2) Investing in knowledge focus on key technology sectors: nanoelectronics, next generation lasers, hydrogen as a source of energy and electricity the EU’s presence in space: GMES – continuing support for the new satellite-based Global system for Monitoring of the Environment and Security (expected to be fully operational by 2008); and a launch facility for Soyoz rockets Marco Polo II Funding 2007-2013 Reduce road congestion, improve the environmental White Paper: Currently under http://europa.eu.int/ Programme programme performance of the freight transport system within the EU and European discussion in comm/transport/ma EUR 740m enhance intermodality Transport Policy Parliament and rcopolo/index_en.ht Support of actions in the freight transport, logistics and other for 2010 – time Council m relevant markets, motorways of the sea and traffic avoidance to decide measures. SUSTAINABLE URBACT follow- 2006-2013 Proposal for new framework programme to extend URBACT to EUKN Continuation www.urbact.org up cover all cities across Europe as well as the experience gained (www.eukn.org) under COMMUNITIES under individual national networks and the European Urban discussion Knowledge Network (EUKN) Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available Culture 2007 Until 2006: From 2007 Three objectives: Continuation Proposal: 167m Transnational mobility for everyone working in the cultural under http://europa.eu.int/ sector in the EU. discussion eur- From 2007: The transnational circulation of works of art and cultural/artistic lex/lex/LexUriServ/ proposed products. site/en/com/2004/c budget of Dialogue interculturel. om2004_0469en01 408 m .pdf TERRITORIAL Interregional Co- Operational 2007-2013 Two Priorities: Other European approval www.interreg3c.net operation Programme Innovation and the knowledge economy Territorial Co- expected COOPERATION (INTERREG IV C) Environment and risk prevention operation summer 2007 Budget Programmes; ERDF € Instrument delivering the ‘Regions for Economic Change’ initiative. objective 1 an 2 321m programmes

CBC Cross border €5.6 bn 2007-2013 Those with relevance to the North Sea Region: Other European Still in Individual websites programmes internal Skagerrak, Kattegat and Øresund Territorial Co- development (INTERREG IV A) borders Fyn K.E.R.N/Sønderjylland Schleswig to be combined - with operation therefore new programme name Programmes; relevance to €0.9 bn UK-FR maritime CBC - tbc objective 1 an 2 the individual external UK-FR-NL-BE maritime CBC – tbc programmes priorities still to borders Central Baltic CBC be determined South Baltic Maritime CBC Other – tbc

STRATEGIES ENVIRONMENT Thematic Strategy Strategy 2006-2030 Actions: 6th EAP Adopted http://www.europa. on the sustainable Budget to improve the understanding and knowledge of European December eu.int/comm/enviro use of natural EUR 10,5m resource use, its negative environmental impact and 2005 nment/natres/index resources significance in the EU and globally .htm Develop tools to monitor and report progress in the EU, member states and economic sectors Foster the application of strategic approaches and processes both in economic sectors and in the member states and encourage them to develop related plans and programmes Raise awareness among stakeholders and citizens of the significant negative environmental impact of resource use. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available Towards a Actions in relation to the threats to soil 6th EAP Strategy to be http://www.europa. thematic strategy Monitoring soil threats adopted in eu.int/comm/enviro for soil protection Future soil protection spring 2006 nment/soil/index.ht m Three elements envisaged: Communication on the principles of Community Soil protection Policy A Soil Framework Directive analysis of the environmental, economic and social impacts of the proposals Taking Action: 6th EAP http://www.europa. sustainable use of Renewed emphasis on full implementation of existing eu.int/comm/enviro resources forward: legislation nment/waste/strate A Thematic Simplification and modernization of existing legislation gy.htm Strategy on the Introduction of life-cycle thinking into waste policy prevention and Promotion of more ambitious waste prevention policies recycling of waste Better knowledge and information Development of common reference standards for recycling Further elaboration of the EU’s recycling policy Thematic Strategy Strategy Promote the sustainable use of the seas and conserve marine 6th EAP adopted http://www.europa. on the Protection ecosystems Proposal for a eu.int/comm/enviro and Conservation Directive nment/water/marin of the Marine A framework for enhanced cooperation should ensure: establishing a e/com_504_en.pdf Environment A high level of protection for Europe’s oceans and seas Framework for An improved knowledge base to inform policy making Community Integrated and cost-effective actions to reduce pressures Action in the field Effective monitoring and assessment to make sure goals are of Marine achieved and actions deliver results Environmental Policy New EU Maritime Policy (Green Paper to be presented in I/2006) Thematic Strategy Making environment legislation work better 6th EAP Adopted in http://www.europa. on Air Pollution Integrating air quality concerns into other policy areas 2005 eu.int/comm/enviro nment/air/cafe/inde x.htm

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available A European Green Energy for growth and jobs in Europe: completing the internal Public http://www.europa. Strategy for Paper European electricity and gas markets consultation to eu.int/comm/energ Sustainable, An Internal Energy Market that guarantees security of supply: begin in March y/green-paper- Competitive and solidarity between Member States 2006 energy/index_en.ht Secure Energy Tackling security and competitiveness of energy supply: m towards a more sustainable, efficient and diverse energy mix 8 March 2006 An integrated approach to tackling climate change Adoption by the Encouraging innovation: a strategic European energy Commission of technology plan the GP Towards a coherent external energy policy

PRIORITY Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available ACCESSIBILITY i2010 - A Strategy Three policy priorities: Initiative http://europa.eu.int/ European to create an open and competitive single market for adopted on 1 information_society Information information society and media services within the EU. June 2005 /eeurope/i2010/ind Society for growth to increase EU investment in research on information and ex_en.htm and employment communication technologies (ICT) by 80%. to promote an inclusive European information society. SUSTAINABLE Thematic Strategy Better integration of existing EU environment policies and 6th EAP Adopted http://www.europa. on the Urban legislation at the local level by supporting local authorities to adopt January 2006 eu.int/comm/enviro COMMUNITIES Environment a more integrated approach to urban management nment/urban/pdf/co m_2005_0718_en. Measures: pdf Guidance on integrated environmental management Guidance on sustainable urban transport plans Support for EU wide exchange of best practices Commission Internet Portal for Local Authorities Training

GUIDELINES GENERAL Community principles 2007-2013 improving the attractiveness of Member States, regions and Lisbon and Adopted on 6 http://ec.europa.eu/ Strategic and cities by improving accessibility, ensuring adequate quality and Gothenburg October 2006 regional_policy/sou Guidelines on priorities of level of services, and preserving their environmental potential; Strategies rces/docoffic/2007/ Cohesion cohesion encouraging innovation, entrepreneurship and the growth of osc/index_en.htm policy (€ the knowledge economy by research and innovation 308 bn) capacities, including new information and communication technologies; and creating more and better jobs by attracting more people into Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

PRIORITY Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available employment entrepreneurial activity, improving adaptability of workers and enterprises and increasing investment in human capital.

ENVIRONMENT Strategic 2007-2013 Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry CAP reform, Guidelines http://europa.eu.int/ Guidelines for sectors based on adopted in comm/agriculture/c Rural Improving the environment and countryside LEADER+ February 2006 apreform/rdguidelin Development Improving the quality of life in rural areas and encouraging es/index_en.htm diversification Building Local Capacity for Employment and Diversification Translating priorities into programmes Complementarity between Community Instruments

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available

DIRECTIVES/REGULATIONS INNOVATION European Institute Regulation From end of The EIT will contribute to bridge the innovation gap between Proposal for a http://ec.europa.eu/ of Technology 2007 or the EU and its major competitors by promoting further the regulation education/policies/ early 2008 integration of the three sides of the knowledge triangle in a educ/eit/index_en.h mutually-supportive manner and providing a world-class tml innovation-oriented critical mass at the EU level. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available ENVIRONMENT Water Framework Law transpositio protection or rivers, lakes, coastal areas and groundwater Proposals for Adopted in http://europa.eu.int/ Directive n into objectives to ensure that all waters meet “good status” by daughter 2000 comm/environment national 2015. directives on /water/water- legislation identification by member states of individual river basins groundwater and framework/index_e in 2003, ensuring appropriate administrative arrangements for each flood risk n.html final river river basin district within national territory management basin requires cross-border cooperation to ensure appropriate manageme administrative arrangements for each international river basin Replaces seven nt plans district earlier directives: incl. Ensures active participation of all stakeholders, including on surface programme NGOs and local communities, in water management activities. water, on s and Ensures reduction and control of pollution from all sources like measurement measures agriculture, industrial activity, and urban areas, etc. methods and in 2009 Requires water pricing policies and ensures that the polluter sampling pays. frequencies and exchanges of information on fresh water quality; the fish water, shellfish water, and groundwater directives; and the directive on dangerous substances discharges Proposal for a Law criteria for the assessment of good groundwater chemical Cf. Water Proposal by the http://europa.eu.int/ daughter directive status; Framework Commission eur- on groundwater criteria for the identification and reversal of significant and Directive (September lex/en/com/pdf/200 protection against sustained upward trends and for the definition of starting 2003) 3/com2003_0550e pollution points for trend reversals. n01.pdf establishes a requirement to prevent or limit indirect discharges of pollutants into groundwater Proposal for a Law Flood risk assessment for each river basin district Cf. Water Proposal by the http://europa.eu.int/ daughter directive Flood risk maps Framework Commission comm/environment on the Flood risk management plans Directive (January 2006) /water/flood_risk/pd assessment and f/com_2006_15_en management of .pdf floods Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available ENVIRONMENT Proposal for a Law A framework for the development of Marine Strategies designed to 6th EAP Under http://www.europa. Directive achieve good environmental status in the marine environment and Thematic discussion eu.int/comm/enviro establishing a to ensure the continued protection and preservation of that Strategy on the nment/water/marin Framework for environment and the prevention of deterioration Protection and e/dir_505_en.pdf Community Action Conservation of in the field of the Marine Marine Environment Environmental Policy Air Quality Law Streamlining of existing provisions and merging five legal Four daughter Adopted in http://europa.eu.int/ Framework instruments into a single directives directives 1996 comm/environment Directive The introduction of new air quality standards for fine /air/ambient.htm particulate matter (PM2.5) in air Objectives for ambient air quality to avoid, prevent or reduce harmful effects on human health and the environment as a whole Assess the ambient air quality in member states on the basis of common methods and criteria Obtain adequate information on ambient air quality and ensure that it is made available to the public by means of alter thresholds Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available

INITIATIVES/POLICY

ACCESSIBILITY TEN-Ts Proposed 2007-2013 30 priority axes. Examples relevant for the North Sea Region: TEN Adopted http://www.europa. total budget eu.int/comm/ten/tra of EUR 1. Nordic triangle railway/road axis Calls for nsport/index_en.ht 20.35 billion 2. Motorways of the Sea: Motorway of the Sea if western proposals m (ca. 3 bn Europe (leading from Portugal and Spain via the Atlantic EUR / year) Arc to the North Sea and the Irish Sea) maps: for 2007 - 3. Øresund fixed link http://www.europa. 2013 eu.int/comm/ten/tra nsport/maps/index_ en.htm Motorways of the Part of the Initiative to promote sustainable transport of goods to and through Transport White TEN-T http://europa.eu.int/ Sea TEN-T the European economic area, and to aid port development by Paper guidelines comm/transport/int Legal introducing new intermodal maritime-based logistics chains in adopted on 29 ermodality/motorwa guidelines Europe. TEN-T April 2004 ys_sea/index_en.ht and funding m Three main objectives for the sea motorways projects: By 2010 the (1) freight flow concentration on sea-based logistical routes; network of map: (2) increasing cohesion; motorways of http://www.europa. (3) reducing road congestion through modal shift. the sea should eu.int/comm/transp be established ort/intermodality/m Four corridors have been designated for the setting up of projects throughout otorways_sea/doc/ of European interest: Europe on the 2004_07_30_map_ Motorway of the Baltic Sea (linking the Baltic Sea Member States four corridors motorways_sea.pdf with Member States in Central and Western Europe, including the route through the North Sea/Baltic Sea canal); Motorway of the Sea of western Europe (leading from Portugal and Spain via the Atlantic Arc to the North Sea and the Irish Sea); Motorway of the Sea of south-east Europe (connecting the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus); Motorway of the Sea of south-west Europe (western Mediterranean, connecting Spain, France, Italy and including Malta and linking with the Motorway of the Sea of south-east Europe and including links to the Black Sea). Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available European White Until 2010 Shifting the balance between modes of transport Adopted in http://www.europa. transport Policy Paper Eliminating bottlenecks 2001 eu.int/comm/transp for 2010: time to Placing users at the heart of transport policy ort/white_paper/do decide Managing the globalization of transport cuments/doc/lb_tex te_complet_en.pdf CIVITAS Initiative Co-financed CIVITAS II Programme coordinated by cities (also relevant for Running http://www.civitas- by the EU (2005- Objectives: sustainable initiative.org 2009) to promote and implement sustainable, clean and (energy) urban Continuation overall efficient urban transport measures development under budget of to implement integrated packages of technology and policy priority) discussion the Initiative measures in the field of energy and transport in 8 categories of more than measures (i.e. access restrictions, clean fuels and vehicles, 300 M €. collective passenger transport, integrated pricing strategies, less car intensive lifestyle, soft measures, transport management, urban goods transport) to build up critical mass and markets for innovation IDABC (European 2005-2009 IDABC= Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment eEurope Work http://europa.eu.int/ eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens. programme idabc/ services) adopted on 28 Builds on ICT: February 2006 work programme: to encourage and support the delivery of cross-border public http://europa.eu.int/ sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe, idabc/servlets/Doc? to improve efficiency and collaboration between European id=24379 public administrations and, to contribute to making Europe an attractive place to live, work and invest.

POLICY GENERAL Territorial Agenda Policy 2007 - promoting urban development in a polycentric pattern EU Cohesion To be adopted http://www.bmvbs.d of the EU Paper strengthening urban-rural partnership Policy, Structural at Ministerial e/en/artikel,- promoting transnational competitive and innovative regional Funds Conference 963636/Territorial- clusters Leipzig, May Agenda-of-the- strengthening trans-European technological networks 2007 EU.htm promoting trans-European risk management strengthening ecological structures and cultural resources Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available SUSTAINABLE “A European Policy Bristol Accord set out eight characteristics of a sustainable Agreed under http://www.odpm.g approach to community and a commitment to share good practice case studies UK Presidency: ov.uk/pub/523/Polic COMMUNITIES sustainable EU Ministerial yPapersUKPreside communities” (the Sustainable communities should be: Informal on ncyEUMinisterialInf Bristol Accord) Active, inclusive and safe Sustainable ormalonSustainabl Well run Communities, eCommunities_id1 Well connected November 162523.pdf Well served 2005 Environmentally sensitive Thriving Well designed and built Fair for everyone

Further proposals included: To enhance the impact of European Investment Bank loan finance and To foster generic “place-making” skills Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available Cohesion Policy Commissio November Strengthening the urban dimension in the EU Cohesion Policy. EU Cohesion Public http://europa.eu.int/ and cities: the n staff 2005 – Policy 2007- consultation comm/regional_poli urban contribution working ongoing Themes: 2013 / until February cy/consultation/urb to growth and jobs paper Attractive cities: Community 2006 an/contri_urban_en in the region Transport, accessibility and mobility Strategic Results to be .pdf Access to services and amenities Guidelines integrated into The natural and physical environment the final version The cultural sector of the Community Supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and the knowledge Strategic economy Guidelines Actions for SMEs and micro-enterprises Innovation and the knowledge economy

More and better jobs The paradox of cities: many jobs, yet high unemployment Improving employability by raising levels of educational achievement and training

Disparities within cities Promoting social inclusion and equal opportunities Increased security for citizens

Governance Cities and regions The integrated approach to sustainable urban development Citizen participation Networks and exchange of experience (URBACT extension)

Financing urban renewal Developing financial engineering (JEREMIE) Public-private partnership (PPP) Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available

INITIATIVES/OTHER ENVIRONMENT MSUO – Maritime INTERREG Assistance to INTERREG maritime safety projects by: Interreg IIIB http://www.maritim Safety Umbrella cross- Providing a European and International Network for co- (NWE, NSR, e-safety.org/ Operation programme operation on maritime safety Northern Jointly Promoting project outcomes to establish Europe and partners Periphery, BSR) funded by at the forefront of maritime safety activity four Increasing project competence in maritime safety by closing Interreg IIIB gaps in knowledge and encouraging co-operation programme Assisting programmes to become a collective driving force for s (NSR, maritime safety on the European and International agenda NWE, Northern Periphery, BSR) Trans-European yearly finances electricity and gas transmission infrastructure projects TEN http://www.europa. Energy Networks budget of of European interest eu.int/comm/ten/en (TEN-E) about 25 mainly support for feasibility studies. Most projects cross ergy/index_en.htm Million national borders or have an influence on several EU Member Euros States.

INSTRUMENTS INNOVATION Joint European Joint 2007-2013 JEREMIE will enable European Member States and Regions Agreed by the http://www.eif.eu.int Resources for initiative to use part of their structural funds to obtain a set of financial member states /jeremie/ Micro to Medium instruments that are specifically designed to support micro and in 2005 Enterprises small and medium enterprises. (JEREMIE) aimed at improving access to finance for the development of SMEs, and to enhance support on competitive terms for start- ups and micro-enterprises, through technical assistance, grants, as well as non-grant instruments such as loans, equity, venture capital and guarantees. Funding made available through JEREMIE must be used to provide financing to SMEs making investments in fixed assets and long-term working capital. This may involve new projects or the modernisation or expansion of existing businesses within sectors such as manufacturing, agribusiness, environment, services, ICT, life sciences, etc. 3 main financial instruments: Advisory and technical assistance Equity and venture capital Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Priority Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available Guarantees (both for microcredit loans and SME loans)

NETWORKS INNOVATION A network for EUREKA 1. EUREKA aims to enhance European competitiveness through www.eureka.be market oriented facilitates its support to businesses, research centres and universities R&D (EUREKA) access to that carry out pan-European projects to develop innovative national products, processes and services. public and 2. Includes strategic initiatives: clusters and umbrellas private funding schemes. SUSTAINABLE EUKN European Network / Six themes: Launched in www.eukn.org Urban Knowledge interactive social inclusion & integration; 2005, COMMUNITIES Network portal housing; transport & infrastructure; urban environment; economy, knowledge & employment; security & crime prevention.

Best practice, summaries of practical urban research, descriptions of successful urban policies at a local, regional, national or European level, and descriptions of relevant networks.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 7

Structural Funds and other

Title Type / Period Aim / themes / priorities Link to other Status Website funding covered initiatives available Proposal for the Regulation 2007-2013 ESF supports policies and priorities aimed to achieve progress towards EU Cohesion Proposal http://europa.eu.int/ new ESF full employment, to improve quality and productivity at work, and to Policy comm/employment regulations for the EU promote social inclusion and cohesion. The fund’s actions are in line with _social/esf2000/20 period 2007-2013 Structural the guidelines and recommendations under the European Employment 07-2013_en.html Funds Strategy (EES). http://ec.europa.eu/ Focus on four key areas for action: comm/regional_poli increasing adaptability of workers and enterprises; cy/sources/docoffic enhancing access to employment and participation in the labour /official/regulation/p market; df/2007/fse/com(20 reinforcing social inclusion by combating discrimination and 04)493_en.pdf facilitating access to the labour market for disadvantaged people; promoting partnership for reform in the fields of employment and inclusion. (general site about In the least prosperous regions and Member States, the Funds will changes in concentrate on promoting structural adjustment, growth and job creation. regulations: Under the 'Convergence' objective and in addition to the priorities http://ec.europa.eu/ mentioned above, the ESF will there also support: comm/regional_poli efforts to expand and improve investment in human capital, in cy/sources/docoffic particular by improving education and training systems; /official/regulation/n action aimed at developing institutional capacity and the efficiency of ewregl0713_en.ht public administrations, at national, regional and local level. m)

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 8

Appendix 8 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

Monitoring of the environmental effects of the North Sea Region Programme The monitoring of the environmental impacts is an integrated part of the evaluation activities of the North Sea Programme 2007-2013.

As part of the Programme evaluations in line with the General Regulations and the provisions laid down in the Operational Programme on evaluation, likely significant environmental effects will be assessed. This ensures that appropriate remedial actions can be undertaken if the evaluation reveals unintended adverse environmental effects.

Measures concerning monitoring are laid down in the Operational Programme concerning the role and composition of the Joint Monitoring Committee in reference to the General Regulations. Moni- toring of environmental effects takes place in the Annual Report as an existing monitoring arrangement, with a view to avoid duplication of monitoring. Specific provisions concerning monitoring of the environmental effects will be carried out on the basis of systematically collected information on likely environmental effects via the implementation of projects (periodical project reports).

The environmental data used for programme monitoring is based on project applications. All projects are, at application stage, required to indicate which environmental issues the project is likely to impact significantly. In this first stage, projects thus indicate whether the impact on the specific issue will be positive, neutral or negative.

In a next section, projects are required to specify indicators that quantify their likely environmental impact, in relation to those issues that have been identified to be impacted (positively or negatively) previously. Projects are asked to establish relevant indicators based on a given list of indicators and/or to specify own indicators in relation to pre-defined environmental issues. Section D of the project application form – Environmental Information – has been designed accordingly. Indicator baselines and targets presented further down are derived from these sections of the application form.

Achieved figures that will be presented are based on figures reported in periodical project reports. Once approved, projects need to report on the progress of achieving the specified indicators once a year, with every other periodical report.

The following indicators will be used in relation to the environmental issues identified in the SEA: Environmental issues Indicators Biodiversity, flora and fauna Amount of Natura 2000 areas affected Air and climate factors Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equiva- lents) Landscape Area subject to change (in ha) Energy efficiency Without pre-defined indicator, monitoring based on indicators specified by projects Use of renewable and non-renewable Additional capacity of renewable energy production resources (MWh) Adaptation to climate change Without pre-defined indicator, monitoring based on indicators specified by projects

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 8

Likely environmental impacts of projects approved in 2010 The below table provides an overview of the environmental issues and the way that the 7 newly approved projects (call 5) impact them. The projects are listed according to the priorities and areas of intervention; the table entries indicate whether the project addresses the specific environmental issue positively, negatively or neutral.

In total regarding the 46 approved projects, 7 project report to be neutral in terms of environmental impact, whereas 39 projects stated to have positive environmental impacts. All 7 applications approved in 2010 do foresee positive impacts.

As a general conclusion it can be stated that at application stage all approved projects up and including 2010 report likely positive or neutral and no negative effects on the environment. This information will be used as a basis when evaluating the environmental indicators in the next section.

The projects approved in 2009 reported the following likely impacts on environmental issues:

Use of renew- Biodiversity, Air and climate Energy able and Adaptation to Landscape flora and fauna factors efficiency non-renewable climate change resources

pos neg neut pos neg neut pos neg neut pos neg neut pos neg neut pos neg neut 3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies

Cruise Gateway + + + iTransfer + + + Green Airports + + + + 3.2 To promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors LO- PINOD Food Port +/- + +/- +/- +/- +/- +/- 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions CNSS + + +/- + + +/- e- harbours +/- + +/- + + + +: positive; -: negative; +/-: neutral

Detailed Information on likely environmental impacts of projects approved in 2010 The projects approved in 2010 specified the below indicator information regarding environmental issues that they are likely to have impacts on (compare above table). In the following tables, all indicators that were specified by the 7 projects in relation to the five identified main environmental issues used for monitoring are displayed to show the projects’ fields of impact as well as targets.

Quality of data The below tables span a wide range of projects and indicators, therefore, accumulation is difficult in parts, primarily with respect to the indicators developed by the projects themselves in contrast to the pre-defined indicators. Therefore, as well as for the reason that further projects will be approved providing additions, all indicators are at this stage listed separately. The pre-defined indicators may at later stage be accumulated. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 8

Biodiversity, flora and fauna

Projects Indicators Description Unit Base Target Source of information 3.1 To promoted regional accessibility strategies Green pre-defined Natura 2000 areas number 0 2 Noise reduction by 2 Natura Airports affected 2000 area in the Netherlands pre-defined Natura 2000 areas number 0 0 Project management team affected iTransfer 3.2 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions pre-defined Natura 2000 areas After large scale harbour CNSS affected number 0 0 implementation

Air and climatic factors

Projects Indicators Description Unit Base Target Source of information

3.1 To promoted regional accessibility strategies pre-defined Reduction in green house CO2 0 30,000 By sustainable aircraft cooling gas emissions equivalent and heating, LED runway light- (tons) ing, green GPU, increasing public surface access, energy efficiency et al. (Project man- Green agement and communication Airports team) pre-defined Reduction in green house CO2 0 18,000 By use of bio fuel, reducing gas emissions equivalent individual traffic and reducing (tons) fuel consumption of fer- iTransfer ries(project management team) 3.2 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions pre-defined Reduction in green house CO2 0 24,500 Through modal shift to SSS, gas emissions equivalent barge & rail (see modal split (tons) below) (via PMT based on ECOTRANSIT Lo-Pinod www.ecotransit.org) pre-defined Reduction in green house CO2 0 10,000 Partner reports Food gas emissions equivalent Port (tons) 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions pre-defined Reduction in green house CO2 0 7,600,000 2008 figures; 12-15% saving gas emissions equivalent in all partner cities implement- e- (tons) ing E-harbours harbours

Landscape No indicators in the field of landscape were defined in 2010.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 8

Energy efficiency Projects Indicators Description Unit Base Target Source of information 3.1 To promoted regional accessibility strategies Cruise pre- Energy savings % 0 5 Terminal Energy Gateway defined consumption per passenger 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions pre- Energy savings MWh 0 48,960 2008 figures; 10 saving in all e- defined partner cities implementing E- harbours harbours pre- Use of new energy Demonstrations by CNSS defined sources 0 2 showcases

Use of renewable energy Projects Indicators Description Unit Base Target Source of information 3.1 To promoted regional accessibility strategies pre-defined Additional capacity of MWh 0 0 After project life implementation Green renewable energy use of renewable energy at Airports production SMEs pre-defined Additional capacity of MWh 0 14,500 Via bio fuel (project man- renewable energy agement team) iTransfer production 3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions pre-defined Additional capacity of MWh 0 8,400 2008 figures; 200% increase e- renewable energy in all partner cities harbours production implementing E-harbours

Adaptation to climate change Projects Indicators Description Unit Base Target Source of information 3.1 To promoted regional accessibility strategies Cruise Own Raise awareness Conference 0 200 Attendance list Gateway attendees 3.2 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions Own Smart energy networks Number 0 7 Locations where smart net- e- with lower COR production work is tested and implemented harbours

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 9

Appendix 9 Environmental indicators achieved in 2010

Environmental Indicator Achievements 2010 Based on the 46 approved projects, 28 projects reported on indicators in 2010. Of these, 12 projects were able to report achievements in terms of their environmental indicators. In contrast to two projects that reported achievements in 2009, this shows considerable progress. These 12 projects reported on pre-defined environmental indicators as well as their own indicators.

Based on the information provided by approved projects, only the pre-defined indicators can be accumulated at this stage. The aggregated achievements, based on 8 projects that reported achievements in relation to pre-defined environmental indicators, are displayed in the table below. In addition, achievements with regards to the adaptation to climate change are displayed, which are monitored based on the project’s own indicators.

As can be seen, up and including 2010, 16 Natura 2000 areas were affected by activities carried out by the projects Cliwat, enerCoast, CPA, DiPol (Priority 2) and Dryport (Priority 3). Build with Care and Answer, both from Priority 4, have reduced green house gas emissions by 140 tons of CO2 equivalent.

Environmental Indicator Achievements 2010

Environmental Project Achievements Achievements Issue Indicator Unit Baseline target 2009 2010 Biodiversity, flora Natura 2000 areas and fauna affected number 0 21 1 15 Reduction in green CO2 Air and climatic house gas equivalent factors emissions (tons) 0 710 0 140 Area subject of Landscape change ha 50 210 0 1 Use of renewable and non- Additional capacity renewable of renewable resources energy production MWh 0 200 0 50 Areas affected km2 0 1,116 0 651 Adaptation to climate change number of Raised awareness people 0 8,000 0 1698

Overview of all indicators at disaggregated level, considering gender split, age groups, target groups and different levels of results, where relevant. The data on aggregated level is displayed in chapter 2 (compulsory and generic indicators) and chapter 3 (priority indicators) of the Annual Report.

Compulsory Indicators Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Raising awareness / dissemination Output 120A transnational exhibitions number 2 179 30 75 105 dissemination outputs Output own events number 7 744 36 298 334 Output external number 10 337 49 380 429 events Output published number 91 102,543 169 877 1,046 material Output websites number 5 10,062 60 38,765 38,825 Output TV and radio number 0 385 33 200 233 appearances

Output dvd's number 1 8,531 1,637 8 1,645 Output other number 0 100,623 200 343 543 Result 120B individuals reached by exhibitions number male 0 38,997 13,298 32,600 45,898 (priority) specific awareness raising activities Result exhibitions number female 0 37,230 10,832 17,859 28,691 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Result own events number male 0 7,863 2,055 15,487 17,542 Result own events number female 0 5,398 1,199 12,254 13,453 Result external number male 0 15,925 5,605 30,195 35,800 events Result external number female 0 13,175 3,742 22,552 26,294 events Result published number male 0 115,811 99,081 486,451 585,532 material Result published number female 0 92,560 92,336 396,104 488,440 material Result websites number male 0 129,229 4,229 53,474 57,703 Result websites number female 0 115,729 4,229 44,387 48,616 Result TV and radio number male 0 599,010 0 1,822,302 1,822,302 appearances Result TV and radio number female 0 524,010 0 1,849,084 1,849,084 appearances Result dvd's number male 0 7,050 0 0 0 Result dvd's number female 0 6,150 0 0 0 Result n/a organisations in target exhibitions number 211 3,382 13 664 677 groups reached by (priority) specific awareness raising activities Result own events number 103 6,969 1,257 2,241 3,498 Result external number 17 2,568 1,366 4,651 6,017 events Result published number 101 6,867 1,088 82,174 83,262 material Result websites number 18 5,658 110 374 484 Result TV and radio number 0 2,174 0 681 681 appearances Result dvd's number 100 945 0 70 70 Result other number 1,020 4,017 993 2,322 3,315

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Strengthening transnational co-operation Result 130B Organisations within activity number 404 2,155 724 1,372 2,096 and outside the official core partnership involved in the project (i.e. as contributor to activity or output) Result output number 118 738 1 523 524 Result 130C individuals within and activity number 619 8,489 1,280 3,473 4,753 outside the official core partnership involved in the project (i.e. as contributor to activity or output) Result output number 130 2,617 2 1,370 1,372 Output 130D project administration number 53 463 46 275 321 outputs (I): transnational partner management meetings

Generic Indicators Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Core activities Output 210A developed: transnational number 36 543 9 168 177 training Output staff number 31 162 40 113 153 exchange programmes Result 210B individuals in different male 18-24 number 9 1,898 92 193 285 social and age groups undertaken transnational training Result female 18-24 number 1 1,011 44 140 184 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Result unemployed number 0 883 81 68 149 18-24 Result male 25-54 number 65 1,574 479 506 985 Result female 25-54 number 15 1,128 127 280 407 Result unemployed number 0 320 10 35 45 25-54 Result male 55+ number 20 427 0 59 59 Result female 55+ number 20 235 0 14 14 Result unemployed number 4 283 50 28 78 55+ Result individuals in different male 18-24 number 0 11 0 4 4 social and age groups undertaken staff exchange Result female 18-24 number 0 19 0 4 4 Result unemployed number 0 8 0 0 0 18-24 Result male 25-54 number 0 238 0 59 59 Result female 25-54 number 0 170 0 35 35 Result unemployed number 0 15 0 0 0 25-54 Result male 55+ number 0 11 0 4 4 Result female 55+ number 0 9 0 2 2 Result unemployed number 0 5 0 0 0 55+ Output 210C initiatives that provide number 6 181 10 50 60 or help find investment re-sources Result 210D complementary Euro 0 261,014,100 0 12,178,000 12,178,000 financing secured (financing additional to approved project budget) Output 210E transnational number 42 207 22 121 143 demonstration projects Output pilot schemes number 0 174 6 60 66

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Output feasibility studies number 0 70 1 62 63 Output other number 1 189 20 26 46

Output 210F transnational number 8 134 23 22 45 knowledge bases

Output technology transfer number 0 19 3 5 8 centres

Output schemes number 0 28 5 4 9

Output know-how exchange number 3 81 15 39 54 platforms

Output other number 1 33 2 12 14

Raising awareness / dissemination Impact 220A individuals within and male number 4,970 7,118,586 159,233 2,082,525 2,241,758 outside the NSR with greater awareness of project outputs Impact female number 1,650 7,058,058 127,940 1,929,210 2,057,150 Impact n/a organisations within number 246 34,798 962 4,117 5,079 and outside the NSR with greater awareness of project outputs

Strengthening transnational co-operation Output 230A project administration number 6 210 107 31 138 outputs (II): shared IT systems Output n/a project administration number 13 223 26 94 120 outputs (III): other

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Priority indicators Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Priority 1 building on our capacity for innovation Output 311A transnational new number 0 299 49 35 84 networks Output improved number 0 3 0 0 0 Output alliances new number 0 107 20 6 26 Output improved number 0 0 0 0 0 Output collaborations new number 0 28 0 23 23 Output improved number 0 20 0 9 9 Output discussion fora new number 6 312 150 1 151 Output improved number 0 0 0 0 0 Output other new number 30 50 9 17 26 Output improved number 0 0 0 0 0 Output 311B awareness raising number 1 529 399 6 405 activities on ICT applications

Output 311C e-government number 0 105 4 18 22 services created

Result 311D tools for transnational number 1 28 3 7 10 technology transfer adopted for RTD exchange within and between clusters and target groups Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Result 311E people in the NSR male number 100 96,100 144 1,019 1,163 reached by specific awareness raising activities concerning tools for technology and knowledge transfer

Result female number 50 45,800 124 509 633 Result 311F people in the NSR male number 100 15,600 60 12 72 reached / provided access to new / improved services or other outputs concerning e- government

Result female number 50 15,450 0 44 44 Result 311G investment in RTD private Euro 0 10,000,000 0 0 0 triggered

Result public Euro 0 0 0 0 0 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Priority 2 promoting the sustainable management of our environment Output 312A transnational number 1 36 0 1 1 integrated / implementation strategies Output 312B contingency plans new number 2 9 0 1 1 Output improved number 0 8 0 0 0 Output 312C common databases new number 5 28 1 3 4 Output improved number 0 9 0 0 0 Output 312D new political number 0 41 0 4 4 agreements

Output 312E new transnational number 9 69 0 5 5 model approaches

Output 312F transnational network new number 17 70 1 18 19 Output improved number 0 4 0 0 0 Output discussion forum new number 1 8 0 8 8 Output improved number 0 34 0 2 2 Output technology transfer new number 1 24 0 5 5 exchange scheme Output improved number 0 5 0 0 0 Result 312G land area subject to transnational ha 120,000,000 552,480,343 11 2,251 2,262 management tools Result action plans ha 0 238,027 0 95,645 95,645 Result agreements ha 0 3,044,850 0 50 50

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Result common ha 0 860,015,000 0 0 0 databases Result model ha 1 10,068,056 0 75 75 approches and pilots concerning risk prevention and management schemes Result sea area subject to transnational ha 1,000 354,002 0 0 0 management tools Result action plans ha 0 436,000 0 86,000 86,000 Result agreements ha 0 0 0 0 0 Result common ha 0 350,002 0 0 0 databases Result model ha 0 5,000,077 0 5,000,075 5,000,075 approches and pilots concerning risk prevention and management schemes Result 312H Coastline subject to transnational km 61,392 75,754 0 0 0 management tools Result action plans km 0 490 0 0 0 Result agreements km 0 0 0 0 0 Result common km 0 3 0 0 0 databases Result model km 0 4,812 0 3,157 3,157 approches and pilots Result risk km 0 1,450 0 0 0 prevention and management schemes Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Result 312I clean and renewable 0 0 0 0 0 energy infrastructure provided Result 312J increase of supply of % change in 0 22 0 5 5 clean and renewable kgoe energy Result 312K new technologies / number 13 94 0 6 6 pilots to reduce pollution and manage risks transferred transnationally and implemented

Result sea area subject to transnational ha 0 5 0 0 0 management tools Result action plans ha 0 4 0 4 4 Result agreements ha 0 100 0 0 0 Result common ha 0 0 0 0 0 databases Result model ha 0 0 0 0 0 approches and pilots concerning accessibility strategies Result logistics ha 0 4 0 4 4 solutions Result 313C new logistics or number 0 14 0 4 4 multimodal technologies / pilots transferred transnationally and implemented Result 313D technology centres number 0 3 0 0 0 helping transnational exchange Result transnational number 0 18 0 2 2 databases helping transnational exchange Result 313E transnational transport km 0 10,003 0 0 0 corridor and links between urban and rural areas subject of reduced travel time (time-distance minutes over 100km) by more sustainable transport

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Output/ Achievements Result/ SFC Priority/Programme Indicator Impact code description Unit Baseline* Target* 2009 2010 Total Priority 4 promoting sustainable and competitive communities Output 314A transnational number 0 44 6 5 11 integrated / implementation strategies Result 314B transferred new number 2 61 7 7 14 transnationally and technologies implemented: Result services number 0 35 0 0 0 Result pilots number 0 245 0 130 130 Result 314C areas in decline management ha 0 1,809,999 1,809,998 0 1,809,998 (tbc) subject to tools Result strategies ha 0 1 0 0 0 Result initiatives ha 0 310 0 300 300 Result 314D expanding areas management ha 0 0 0 0 0 subject to tools

Result strategies ha 0 0 0 0 0 Result initiatives ha 0 28 0 0 0 Output 314E transnational energy- number 0 18 4 5 9 efficiency campaigns implemented Result 314F brownfield land re- ha 0 0 0 0 0 used Result 314H people in the NSR male number 0 7,950 1,472 4,383 5,855 reached by specific awareness raising activities concerning energy efficiency

Result female number 0 42,850 833 4,727 5,560 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 10

Result people from target male number 0 54,395 184 1,136 1,320 groups in the NSR reached / provided access to new / improved services or other outputs in priority 4 Result female number 0 19,395 194 1,214 1,408

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 11

Situation after 5th call

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Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12

Priority 1: Building on our capacity for Innovation

ERIP The project All project partners are committed to supporting genuine is positive in equality of opportunity (EO) and each has in place robust, terms of comprehensive and verifiable published EO policies designed to equal address both internal (e.g. employment, education etc) and opportunities external (e.g. project beneficiaries, partner relations etc) EO issues. Equal Opportunities principles will be closely integrated into the project and applied to all project operations, prohibiting direct or indirect discrimination to avoid gender, racial and other bias, including regulations on harassment. All materials and information will be verified to ensure that they are non- discriminatory. To that end, the project website (and partner online document repository) will be designed and validated according to current W3C and WAI WCAG guidelines to ensure maximum accessibility to project information and resources for those users with sensory impairments. The partnership will require, as an issue of eligibility to receive project-related support that all participating SME testers must have in place a current EO policy compatible with national and EU legislation. Where such a policy is not in place, ERIP will seek to secure a commitment to develop and implement such a policy before Interreg funded support is provided. Where an enterprise declines to develop and implement an appropriate EO policy, Interreg funded support must be refused. NMU The project The NMU qualification offering will integrate an e-learning is positive in approach. The higher level of accessibility of the qualification terms of offering via the Internet enables persons to benefit from life-long equal learning even though they lack flexibility in terms of place and opportunities time; like for example parents that stay at home looking after their children for a certain period of their life or students living in peripheral areas in the NSR. These users can keep their knowledge up-to-date, thereby preparing them for their (re- )integration into the labour market. Project extension: The project extension particularly aims at opening up life-long learning to already employed people and to facilitate CPD at different stages of a career path. The research in the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 complementarity of training and university as well as the accreditation of work experience in university education under a life-long learning concept will open new opportunities with a high level of accessibility, which is underlined by the transnational and modular structure of the NMU product service portfolio. E-CLIC The project Access to high-speed broadband and e-services coupled with is positive in technological advancement in equipment, the global terms of proliferation of small mobile devices and other intelligent equal terminals that can be used to communicate and gather data, opportunities voice and video information, may not in itself contribute to the promotion of equal opportunities. But it certainly creates enormous opportunities for all individuals irrespective of sex, ethnic origin and physical disabilities to be creative, to flourish and to lead even more meaningful and productive lives, enabling their empowerment and their full participation on the basis on equality in all spheres of society and in all decision- making processes E-CLIC will pay close attention to considering and communicating this fact throughout the evolution of the project. E-CLIC also aims at reaching a balance in gender and ethnic background among the persons involved in the project’s steering committee as well as in leading or co-ordinating positions in the project. Innovative The project The project does not have a direct impact on equal Foresight is neutral in opportunities. However, each of the partners has equal Planning for terms of opportunity policies and will apply them in implementing the Business equal project. In respect to dealing with work force issues, the impact Development opportunities of in-migration an out-migration in order to balance the need and the availability of employees, will be addressed. The risk of unfair employment conditions, and social dumping at the extreme, will be acknowledged. NSSP The project Equal opportunities & equality of opportunity are an integral part is neutral in of the project, whose key aims are to support the development terms of of the screen/digital media & create opportunities for more & equal better jobs within the NSR - peripherality of many of the areas opportunities having impacted upon equality of opportunity. Equal opportunity is a cross-cutting theme & the creative industries sector offers a range of opportunity - it is seen as an interesting sector for many young people in particular & capturing young talent will be a key element of WP3. Culture & creativity have strong opportunities to celebrate the regions diversity & to involve people. More traditional equal opportunities will also be considered & Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 materials developed will ensure that the digital/screen sector is promoted to all sectors of the community. Events & activities will ensure inclusion & aim to ensure equal participation across gender/race/age, as appropriate. POWER Cluster The project The project focuses on making full use of the productive is positive in potential of the NSR’s work force. It supports the regeneration of terms of several declining coastal communities in the NSR. These equal communities suffer from high unemployment & many people opportunities face the risk of redundancy if currently employed in the declining traditional offshore sector. The evolving OWI will help to develop opportunities for these people. It can be seen as a wealth creator for coastal communities, increasing income & employment levels. The project will ensure that all partners are aware of equal opportunities responsibilities in the project context & implement them. This is especially important in crafting & promoting skills & career packages to deliver WP 3. WP3 addresses skill-shortages, re-skilling, up-skilling and life long learning. It aims to adapt the skills of the existing workforce to the new challenges of the OWI. It also promotes career opportunities in schools as well as offering career paths for the existing workforce. The wider use of technology will be explored to allow learning to be more flexible. The project can help improve the participation of women in these non-traditional areas of employment by ensuring that project promotion, especially the resulting skills & career promotion packages, are also targeted at women. The project will consider access to its dissemination materials, such as promotional material, exhibitions and website. This is especially necessary with regard to the website. Smart Cities The project All partners are committed to equal opportunities and have is neutral in comprehensive and robust equal opportunities policy statements terms of and strategies. Project activities will be conducted to meet the equal requirements of these policies - e-services provision reduces opportunities negative equalities barriers to access public services for example, for people with physical and sensory impairment; those located in peripheral areas and/ or have transport difficulties – also addresses perceptual barriers for people from minority ethnic communities who may feel they will be discriminated against; can reduce barriers to access for non- native speakers (translation services or using 3rd party assistance) - specific services and pilots, especially developing Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 services using mobile telephony will be targeted at groups who do not normally use e-services and contributes to addressing the digital divide. - personalized and pro-active services help people to have what they are entitled to, without asking POYO The project In the maintenance area equal opportunities have been an is positive in important issue for years. It appears to be very difficult to get terms of female workers in this area. National governments have equal promoted heavily with quotes like 'A smart girl is prepared for opportunities her future', 'Think technique!'. These efforts did not gain very huge effects. Technique appears not to be so favourable for girls. Within POYO we will further promote the courses for girls and be providing a transnational aspect it might be more appealing. Next to that the target group of the students exist for a large part of students that are in a ethnic minorities (people with a Marrocan, Turkish background). ClimaFruit The project The ClimaFruit consortium understands the importance of is neutral in gender equality & takes this issue seriously. Actions to improve terms of the representation of women in research are central to equal improving gender equity in the life sciences (e.g., as detailed in opportunities ttp://europa.eu.int/comm/research/sciencesociety/pdf/she_figure ws_2003.pdf). Therefore, we have ensured that this project is neutral in terms of equal opportunity. We promote equal opportunities through encouraging participation in the project irrespective of gender or nationality. The project leadership team features international experts; the Project Leader & Work Package Leaders constitute 2 male & 2 female project participants. The project manager is female. Experts are employed in equal opportunity employee organizations & therefore project participants, national experts & associated teams will deliver balanced participation of men, women & ethnic minorities. This approach will be applied to the recruitment of staff to the project & to our engagement with end- users. SKINT The project SKINT is meant to positively enhance social inclusion and equal is positive in opportunities in different aspects. It is in line with the terms of Communication from the Commission of 21 February 1996 equal "Incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all opportunities Community policies and activities" [COM(96) 67]. SKINT highlights the need for a positive contribution of each individual to the sustainable development of his/her community. Through its training programmes which will inclusively involve male and Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 female participants, SKINT intends to expand & challenge cultural norms and encourage the participation of women in the water sector. All partners are equal opportunities employers & acknowledge the need to consider equal opportunities issues, in particular widening opportunities for minority groups of all kinds. CCC The project The promotion of equal opportunities is directly linked to the is positive in project’s topic: American publicist Richard Florida refers to terms of creativity as ‘the great leveller’, not tied to race or sex. Creative equal industries (CI) therefore provide ample opportunity to promote opportunities equal opportunities especially in terms of employment. Unlike other industrial sectors, a high percentage of people working in CI are women. Due to CIs’ fragmentation (high number of microenterprises and freelancers) and its horizontal organization, it offers promising career opportunities especially for women and people from ethnic minorities. In particular the usage and linkage of elements of ethnic minorities culture are recognized as one of the key drivers for creativity and “creative products”. CCC will take these the facts into special consideration within its implementation and in the design of pilot actions. It will encourage the equal participation of male and female in the project activities and shall encourage ethnic minorities to take part in the various project events. With regard to the project structure, CCC aims to reach a gender balance in the project’s steering committee and the WP-groups NorthseaSupply The project Promoting equal opportunities doesn’t mean treating women in is positive in the same way as men, but rather valuing and respecting terms of individual preferences and differences. Men’s characteristics, equal situations and needs are often taken as the norm, and in order opportunities to have the same opportunities, in this “logic” women are expected to behave like men. A special “feature” of the business community is informal networks, operating often via events and gatherings, for example at Chambers of Commerce. Our project seeks to make decision processes more transparent and hence enable women (and young people) to participate in promotional activities for the small enterprise business community. This could particularly address engineering jobs and facilitate access for disabled and thereby leverage the full regional potential. Ensuring equality means for the consortium giving equal consideration to life patterns, needs and interests, to be promoted with a dedicated Action Plan. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12

Priority 2: Promoting the sustainable management of environment LNS The project The Lead Beneficiary is an equal opportunities employer, as are is neutral in many of our partners. We acknowledge the need to consider terms of equal opportunities issues in all aspects of the project. The Lead equal Beneficiary aims to have a balance concerning gender and opportunities ethnic backgrounds throughout the project. Improved Sustainable Coastal Zone Management and fish populations benefit everybody equally, regardless of social background. TIDE The project TIDE will ensure that all ethnic, gender and other social groups is neutral in will have the same opportunities to be involved in the regional terms of stakeholder groups which will be the main communication equal channel through which the TIDE project will operate in each opportunities estuary. The partnership of regions, port authorities, environment agencies and research institutions forms a network in which equal opportunities are taken seriously and are intrinsically recognized and assured. Both institutions internally as well as the TIDE network provide equal opportunities for both men & women and this equal opportunity is also transported to into the project which shows the record of people responsible for implementation. Throughout the project it will be secured that equal opportunities are facilitated in each activity implying also structural dimensions such as dates, locations as well as possibilities for participation and collaboration. BLAST The project The project does not have any specific impact on equal is neutral in opportunities. However, job creation in coastal areas away from terms of the major cities, is important in order to provide equal equal opportunities for men and women. The integrated coastal zone opportunities management with an emphasis also on regional and economic development is hence of importance to equal opportunities. SUSCOD The project SUSCOD will be neutral regarding equal opportunities because is neutral in this is not a core theme in the project. At the practical level, the terms of SUSCOD partnership will strive to realise equal participation equal opportunities for women and men in every activity of the project. opportunities Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 Ballast Water The project The project is neutral to creating equal opportunities for men Opportunity is positive in and women but improves the opportunities for rural communities (resubmission) terms of and areas as it promotes their accessibility of the maritime ports. equal Utilising certified BWT within ships and providing certified opportunities equipment for compliance control, rural marine ports remain accessible for ships after implementing the BWMC. In other scenarios they would need to invest in ballast water intake and land-based treatment facilities and expensive compliance enforcement laboratory facilities that would negatively affect their economic sustainability. On top of this, it is often the rural communities that depend on the regional maritime environment for their resources, such as fisheries, aquaculture, or tourism Thus for them the implementation of the BWMC has an even greater positive impact and improves their opportunities. Aquarius The project Our project is very much a project for families in the countryside. is positive in The entire farm family will be involved and we will invite the terms of women to participate in the development of the farmer as water equal manager. From earlier projects we have seen that the opportunities involvement of the farm family is very important when new ways of thinking are to be developed. Clean water and a clean environment is a matter which is important to everybody in the areas which is why we believe it will be relatively easy to get the women involved in the project. We will focus on securing a balanced representation of women in the different groups involved in the project. When it comes to the more scientific work and the project management we would like to point that we have an equal representation of women in the Project Group. The scientific work tends to be dominated by men but we will strive to ensure that women are represented in this part of the project as well in order to seek the synergies in having different kind of people working together. CLIWAT The project CLIWAT demands a high degree of scientific knowledge within is neutral in the fields of hydrogeology, geology, hydro-geochemistry and terms of geophysics and is thus neutral in terms of equal opportunities, equal since the amount of scientists and administrators available with opportunities this knowledge is limited. It should however be noted that at growing number of females are getting employed within this field. Equal opportunities will be considered especially for the temporary staffing Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 CPA The project There is no particular focus on equal opportunities in this is neutral in project. terms of equal opportunities DiPol The project Equal opportunities represent important features of the project, (resubmission) is positive in a fact which will be reflected in the composition of the project terms of team, which includes a balanced proportion of male-female equal scientists in the execution of the project’s tasks. According to opportunities national laws, female employees will be preferred as new staff members if they have equal qualification as male applicants. In addition, minority groups will benefit from the project since both in poor and in rich regions, improvements in environmental quality means improvements in their changes to guarantee their livelihoods. Especially Wilhelmsburg, the German Case site, is dominated by immigrants which is also reflected in the composition of school classes that take part in the project. Leaflets for dissemination to the public will hence have texts in German, English and Turkish. MARE The project One of the aims when defining the management and is positive in organisation of the project has been that of ensuring equal terms of opportunities to men and women and minorities. Although more equal explicit in Regional Authorities, all partners involved have equal opportunities opportunities policies that will be enforced during the project. No form of discrimination by reason of age, sex, ethnic background, religion or other personal circumstances will be acceptable and the project partners, at all levels, will strive to avoid any latent or explicit expression of discrimination. MARE’s management and project participants are familiar with and apply the EU framework strategy: Non-discrimination and equal opportunities for all (SEC (2005)689). As for the project results, equal opportunities are a point of attention for methodologies and FRM strategies developed within MARE. Vulnerability of all persons and properties is considered, e.g. the poor and rich. People’s safety from flood risk is equally protected for all. E.g. evacuation strategies specially consider the elder and disabled. FR communication strategies are also targeted at people speaking different languages than the country's official language. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 SAWA The project The Lead Beneficiary is an equal opportunities employer, as are is positive in many of our partners. We acknowledge the need to consider terms of equal opportunities issues for all aspects of the project. The equal Lead Beneficiary aims to have a balance concerning gender and opportunities ethnic backgrounds throughout SAWA especially in the chairmanship of the different work packages. Biochar The project This project promotes equal opportunities by stimulating a is neutral in balanced participation of women, men and ethnic minorities in terms of project working groups. equal opportunities enerCOAST The project The European Union equal opportunities policy is not simply a is positive in re-launch of the Women Lib Movement but is based within the terms of Lisbon strategy context on a sober analysis of the cost of lost equal opportunities due to all forms of social exclusion up against the opportunities more favourable benchmarks of competing GNPs on the global marketplace. This approach to equal opportunities is documented in the original rationale that triggered the Lisbon policy, cf. "Contribution of the European Commission to the Special European Council in Lisbon, 23-24 March 2000". The "wastage costs" of social exclusion were estimated to be between one and two thousand billion €/year (12-20% GNP). The Commission concluded that "the European social model itself must therefore be adapted to delivering the full potential of the knowledge-based society". Although no accurate figures are yet available, the innovative character of New Energy taps a wide range of human capital resources that were considered negligible in the old energy structures and hierarchies. In particular the business management focus of the enerCOAST strategy attracts urgently needed added value contributions and expertise from hitherto neglected human resources and therefore displays a progressive outlook on social inclusion and in particular on bridging the gender gap. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 North Sea SEP The project All partners have an equal opportunity policy. These policies is positive in incl. gender, migration and handicapped persons' rights. The terms of project activities will strengthen equal opportunities in several equal fields of intervention. The idea of the project is to strengthen the opportunities role of local and regional structures in an industrialized market. Chances for citizens especially including those with low incomes or migration background will be enhanced, because new markets will be developed in the fields of green building, ecological management and environmentally responsible engineering. The project will follow an "easy to see, listen and act" dissemination strategy to make the ideas, future planning for the project and renewable energy themes such as private energy consumption more accessible for a broader mass, incl. special measures for "not easy to reach" target groups e.g. with language problems. Furthermore in the field of gender equality the clusters will strengthen the role of females in engineering and job guarantees will arise from these new opportunities in the SMEs in this sector.

C2CI The project The project is positive in terms of equal opportunities as it is positive in foresees no discrimination of any kind and balanced terms of participation of women and men in the project working process. equal In terms of results (new forms of energy and water treatment, opportunities new products and attractive concepts of accommodation) large groups of people (men, women, old people, young people, island population, visitors) will benefit from them.

Priority 3: Improving the accessibility of places in the NSR CARE-North The project Access to the labour market and to education, social, and other is positive in activities is currently inequitably distributed both in terms of terms of gender, age, and also income levels. In very car-dependent equal regions, access to mobility options is at present particularly opportunities unevenly distributed, and this will doubtless be amplified when mineral oil prices increase drastically. CARE-North will contribute to improved accessibility through supporting the development and implementation of a less car-dependent and more equitable mobility culture (see especially WP7). Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 Cruise Gateway The project Cruise Gateway is based on the cooperation and mutual work of is positive in a balanced participation of women, men and ethnic minorities. terms of As nuclei of intra- and extra European trade, ports and relating equal communities have developed in a very open and tolerant opportunities manner, guaranteeing equal opportunities for everyone. The anti-discriminatory social environment of ports can be further strengthened by a truly interregional project like CRUISE GATEWAY. The partnership brings together different characters coming from different countries, identifying, exchanging and transferring best practices and knowledge.

Dynamically increasing the number of cruise passengers and port of calls within the NSR to foster accessibility, while simultaneously considering a sustainable and environmental friendly environment is core of CRUISE GATEWAY. Further the project's content and objectives aim at a balancing and strengthening of equal opportunities within the EU and in particular the NSR. By initiating the awareness and conceptually work out the requirements to enhance cruise tourism for elderly and disabled people, equality of cruise tourists will be promoted (WP 4, Study 4-02). In addition, facility and service adjustments will support the balanced participation of women, men and ethnic minorities in cruise shipping and crew selection (WP4- E14). In this regard, CRUISE GATEWAY will in particular work on improved leisure offers for crews in the participating ports (WP4-E-15). Moreover, providing specifically guidance to spur development of white spots in the NSR (WP-E16) contributes to the promotion of equal opportunities by strengthening equal economic growth within the NSR. iTransfer The project iTransfer will improve access to jobs and other opportunities to is positive in disabled people in particular and communities disadvantaged by terms of remoteness in general e.g. islands. Public transport users tend equal to be lower income than car owners so they will benefit opportunities proportionately more from services. Representative groups of old and disabled people will be involved in the design and testing aspects of the project. Close liaison with regional economic development and equalities leaders will ensure that opportunities arising from new connections are genuinely equitable. Partners commit to eliminating direct and indirect discrimination Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 through a written policy backed up by monitoring, review, complaints procedure and training for all staff, partners and contractors. The policy will cover recruitment, selection, promotion, participation in project activities and consultations. The policy will be reviewed annually at the partnership meeting. The policy will apply to race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, class or national origin. Differential impact on these groups of project services will be measured and monitored e.g. in passenger surveys. Mainstreaming a gender perspective will be observed throughout the project to further work toward equality of opportunity for all people. Special attention with respect to opportunity to learn in the course of the project and professional training from people from disadvantaged groups, who will be encouraged in turn to take up job and training opportunities arising from the project. So iTransfer will have high quality accessible work and consultation environment, enabling people from all backgrounds to exchange, learn and develop their professional and personal skills.

Green Airports The project With its focus on more sustainable airports operations and is neutral in better public transport services, minimization of induced terms of negative impacts on the environment and society combined with equal accessibility upgrades is at heart of the SAS-Green Airport opportunities project. Considering proposed results and impacts, the approach will sustainably support airports to maintain their key function for accessibility, contributing to regional welfare, economic success, social cohesion, by changing the environmental balance of airport operations for the better. The SAS-Green Airports is expected to be neutral in terms of equal opportunities. No specific groups of the population (in terms of gender, religion, etc.) will be favoured or discriminated against. As a general principle, project partners are committed to respect equal opportunities in every phase of the project. All involved parties, staff and externs will be selected on the basis of their professional qualifications and experience, regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, social class, disability, political engagement and origin, unless those are contrary to applicable law. All proposed activities and envisaged results will be assessed against their impacts on equal opportunities. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 Ultimately, SAS-Green Airports environmental and accessibility objectives will benefit the population - especially the population in the vicinities of airports - collectively.

StratMoS The project The project does not have any specific impact on equal (Extended) is neutral in opportunities. terms of equal opportunities LO- PINOD The project Ports and logistics are traditionally dominated by men. Project is positive in staff exchanges and local community activities will take positive terms of steps to overcome their macho image in the way that they are equal designed and delivered. Project partners are committed to opportunities eliminating direct and indirect discrimination through a written project policy backed up by monitoring, review, complaints procedure and training for all staff, partners and contractors. The policy will cover recruitment, selection, promotion, participation in project activities and consultations. The policy will be reviewed annually at the partnership meeting. The policy will apply to race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, class and national origin. Differential impact on these groups of project services will be measured and monitored e.g. take up of new jobs generated. Development plans produced during the project will give specific consideration for how growth opportunities can be made to work for discriminated groups in the partners’ communities. Close liaison with regional economic development and equalities leaders will ensure that opportunities are genuinely equitable and woman- friendly. Special attention with respect to opportunity to learn in the course of the project and professional training from people from disadvantaged groups, who will be encouraged in turn to take up job and training opportunities arising from the project. So Lo-PINOD will have high quality accessible work and consultation environment, enabling people from all backgrounds to exchange, learn and develop their professional and personal skills. FOOD PORT The project The Food Port project does not have any specific impact on is neutral in equal opportunities. terms of equal opportunities Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 NS FRITS The project NS FRITS will have a positive impact on equal opportunities by is positive in providing people working in the freight supply chain with terms of information that will help reduce stress, address safety and equal security issues and encourage cross border working in NSR. opportunities This will help make the sector more attractive to work in by reducing the feeling of isolation and vulnerability and addressing dignity issues. It is recognised that there is a skills shortage of professional HGV drivers and other operatives in the supply chain, with many nearing retirement. Also females are not entering the sector. Making sure the NSR has enough suitably qualified and experienced staff is absolutely essential to the health of the NSR freight industry. Making the transport and logistics sector a safer, more secure and less stressful place in which to work will ensure it is a more attractive employment proposition, improving depleted employment levels and raising skills. NS FRITS will help ease the pressures of staff shortages within businesses and support increased opportunity for economic growth. SME's will become more competitive by having access to technology and information normally only available to large companies. NS FRITS has the potential to provide reassurance for employee and employer contributing significantly to lone worker safety and as the NSR makes full use of the productive potential of its workforce there will be a positive impact on equal opportunities in the region. Dryport The project The equal opportunities issue in logistics is not easy as it tends is neutral in to be a male dominated world. Indirectly good freight transport terms of systems lead to a stronger regional activity, allowing people to equal work at home or closer to the living situation. A focus on opportunities transportation solutions strengthens the competitiveness of regional and local industries allowing the younger rural generation to stay in the Hinterland, as work opportunities are brought (back) to it. In this way it means equal opportunities for youngsters compared to the Gateway opportunities. Being able to stay closer to home and as a consequence the reduction of commuting time makes the social life stronger and indirectly allows the male part of the transport population to spend more time with family life. On yet a totally different level of equality a major effect will be that the relation of the Hinterland setting with an often dominating gateway will change and that the balance of decision making will improve in favour of the Hinterland. An integrated dryport system will open for a healthier Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 interdependency between these often more remote areas and gateways and allows easier access. It will give the Hinterland a more equal position in policy making. CNSS The project The issues tackled in this project as such are usually gender is neutral in neutral. Accessibility and sustainable development does not terms of separate between men and women or other distinguishing equal features. However, it has been recognized widely that opportunities discriminatory structures and attitudes still result in deeply entrenched patterns of gender inequality in most areas. CNSS will strive to counter this by involving women actively in decision-making at all levels of the project. All the different work packages will focus on having a gender balanced representation. Communication to different target groups will be done within this perspective in mind. All project partners have a policy of equal opportunities within their organisations. Participation in external activities for the promotion of equality in society will also be encouraged by the partners. In addition to these aspects of equality, the project will also increase the accessibility to urban areas for inhabitants suffering from diseases caused, or enforced by, polluted air. E- Harbours The project The Lead Beneficiary is an equal opportunities employer, as are is positive in many of our partners. We acknowledge the need to consider terms of equal opportunities issues in all aspects of the project. The Lead equal Beneficiary aims to have a balance concerning gender and opportunities ethnic backgrounds throughout the project. Improved energy logistics benefits everybody equally, regardless of social background.

Priority 4: Promoting sustainable and competitive communities DC NOISE The project As (re-)integration is one of the priorities in DC NOISE the is positive in project is positive in terms of equal opportunities. The provinces terms of of Groningen and East-Flanders, and Knutepunkt Sørlandet equal have specific actions targeting the re-education and recruitment opportunities of economically vulnerable workers (elderly, youngsters, ethnic, the low-educated), while Hamburg aims at increasing the number of 50+ women on the labour market. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 VITAL The project The project is positive to creating equal opportunities for men is positive in and women, because - in general - it intends to improve the terms of (economical) situation and opportunities of inhabitants of rural equal areas compared with inhabitants of more urban areas. The opportunities experimental courses in WP1 are especially targeted at youngsters and women in rural areas to change and correct their disadvantaged position on the labour market. MP4 The project This project will promote equal participation in planning is positive in processes of women and citizens from different ethnic/religious terms of backgrounds. It will encourage appropriate use of open spaces equal by sectors of society previously underrepresented. Urgent opportunities progress is needed, given predicted trends in demography and increasing mobility of populations. The intention is to address these challenges in the core of the project’s management, within the partnership agreement and as a continuing process throughout the project. Each partner commits itself to respect equal opportunities in terms of human resources involved in the project, with respect to salaries and working conditions. All partners already practice an explicit gender policy. For many years, the scientific, engineering and technological disciplines associated with spatial planning have attracted many more men than women, and staff from a primarily Western European background. As a result, a disproportionate amount of senior staff are white and male. The partners recognise the need for European society to address issues of equality, and value the possibilities to promote new opportunities for wide engagement and inclusion. The project will promote equal opportunities through appropriate choices of images, illustrations and language. The joint challenges of gender equality and inclusion of ethnic minorities will be covered specifically in the work packages dealing with strategic common issues and master planning. CA! The project This project is strong on equal opportunities at several levels. is positive in The partnership benefits from the inclusiveness experience from terms of the participating organisations. Significantly the project has, in equal WP-2, a particular focus on providing better access to exercise opportunities and physical activity using the project’s paths network and on mobilising particular sections of the community. Much of this is aimed at people with access problems, ethno-cultural restrictions, lack of resources, inner city issues and special needs etc. The entire project helps to foster inclusiveness and Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 integration and all of its activities are hoped to help facilitate a better take-up of services due to flexibility and awareness of the need to cater differently to different audiences. It will also contribute to making low-carbon activities viable for all by aiming to encourage use of bio-fuelled public transport and highlight appropriate examples for recycling and re-use which makes sense to all project participants. Partners have experience in working sensitively with special needs clients and the transnational approach to WP2 will ensure that the toolkit is designed appropriately. WP3 activities will include equality considerations in work on impacts of climate change. The project will be implemented in an inclusive way to avoid discrimination and positively promote participation by and products for groups such as disabled people and immigrant communities. SURF The project The SURF project is neutral in gender impact because both is neutral in genders have a huge interest in ensuring that URBAN FRINGEs terms of are of utmost important to society and needs to be put on higher equal up on the political agenda in all partner regions, at local, opportunities regional, national governments and enforced through European Policy. One of the main features is that all work to be carried out in this project, attention is paid to work that stimulates the use of direct accessibility to areas surrounding the towns by minority groups, disable groups that most often or not have no relation with open space and rural areas. Parks and Urban Fringes are ideal areas for these groups which will create healthier life styles. Partners that pay specific attention to these aspects are Aberdeen, Hengelo and East Flanders (Gent). Aberdeen City Council will be closely working with the Green Space Scotland an independent charitable company supported by the Scottish Naturals Heritage & Scottish Government. Waterways for The project Equal opportunities is not the main theme of the project. Growth (WfG) is positive in However the project will take account of equal opportunities terms of issues as appropriate in its work. As far as possible, WfG will equal seek to achieve a balanced participation in its activities in terms opportunities of gender, ethnicity and disability. Events, meetings & promotion/publicity material will take account of the needs of different participants and audiences and meetings will be conducted in a way that is conducive to encouraging participation by all. In addition, some of the pilot actions will have a positive focus on equality issues. In particular one of the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 12 sub-themes for actions under WP1 relates to stimulation of the social economy and aims to encourage life choices, recreation participation and business development for and by disadvantaged groups, particularly ethnic minorities & immigrant communities. ANSWER The project This project does not favour any social group. It is neutral in its is positive in approach to gender, faith, disability, ethnicity. It will not exclude terms of any participant from any business or community group on any of equal these grounds. The project will not seek out any of these groups opportunities for additional support. The project will provide clear equality of opportunity, in compliance with partner policy. The partnership will agree and produce an equal opportunity statement and policy for the project. Any recruitment of permanent or temporary staff to the project by any partner must adhere to that partner’s equal opportunity in recruitment policy. The policy will take into account appropriate actions/ways of engaging with community groups and businesses e.g. particular languages and when hosting events will consider accessibility and other disability issues. All communications will take into account accessibility issues. Costs associated with energy-inefficiency have a disproportionate impact on low-earners and the unemployed. This project aims to address this - in particular the issue of fuel poverty. Build with Care The project BwC is essentially neutral in its gender impact because both is neutral in genders have an interest in mainstreaming low energy design, terms of eco-friendly materials, and sustainable construction techniques. equal Women are already well-represented in the BwC partnership opportunities and throughout all sectors of the building and construction industry and in development and spatial planning. Pursuing innovative design, materials and construction techniques will not undermine this position and may support it. The contribution a healthy indoor environment can make is an integral part of energy-efficient design. It may be that women will be more responsive to such an issue from the health point of view. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

Project Activities Report No. 1 – March 2010 Achievements and Implementation Progress This report is based on the March 2010 project activity reports.

1 SELECTED PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS

Project achievements are thematically clustered regarding policy impact, long term impacts, transnationality, innovation and communications achievements. Selected projects from all priorities are covered.

Policy Impact Achievements

CA! (June 2009 – December 2012) In the Coast Alive project contact was established with the UK Climate Impact Panel and resulted in the Panel becoming a supporter of the project. They offered to provide training for project partners on how to use climate data in their work as well. StratMoS (April 2009 – March 2011) The StratMoS-Northern Maritime Corridor (NMC)-BASIS project was presented at the first Murmansk International Economic Forum. 900 participants from Russia, Norway and other European countries attended discussing future development in the Arctic region. At the annual meeting of the Partnership for the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in Moscow, the StratMoS representative presented a memo on cooperation between NSR and StratMoS and NMC on logistic development. The representative had additional meetings with NSR General Director, Vladimir Mikhaylichenko, the minister of Transport Minster Aid, Yulia Zvorykina and the General Director of Murmansk Transport Hub, Andrey Shapovalyants.

DC Noise (June 2008 – June 2011) Several members of the Flemish Parliament passed a motion in which the Flemish Government asked to research the consequences of demographic change. The DC Noise project representative from the Province of West-Flanders reacted on this motion by handing over a letter to the ministers presenting the DC NOISE project and the Flemish demonstration pilots in particular. The book “The Path Ahead” was handed out to members of the Committee of the Regions during a meeting about demographic change on November 18, 2009. This led to a contact with the reporter of the Committee of the Regions Mr Rob Bats, on the subject of ageing. In February 2010 the director of the ZorginnovatieForum (ZIF) (Groningen) visited the European Commission (ICT for Inclusion and DG Sanco) and presented a master programme and the cooperation with DC NOISE for stimulating ICT adoption. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (BZK) and the Ministry of Housing, Planning and Environment (VROM) took up the lead in a national agenda on population shrinkage and a national knowledge bank for demographic change. Partners from Twente, Zeeland and Groningen are active members of the project groups involved in this.

NS FRITS (January 2009 – December 2011) A representative from the partner People United Against Crime (PUAC) met with MEP Diana Wallis, Vice President of the European Parliament in December 2009, to provide an update on the project. She confirmed her continuing support for the project. PUAC also met with the Senior Policy Officer for International Freight from the Department for Transport in October 2009 to discuss how the project could assist in raising the awareness of International Freight and to explore how NS FRITS can support European, national and regional policy initiatives.

DRYPORT (June 2008 – July 2012) The concept of Dryports is new for the region of Southeast Drenthe. Before the project started the municipalities only sought to optimise their own infrastructure for economic purposes. As a result of the project this has changed and new opportunities are arising for future cooperation.

MARE (January 2009 – December 2011) Learning and Action Alliances (LAA’s) have successfully established links to policy makers, e.g. in the Netherlands by being awarded the status of a national pilot for the Multi Level Safety policy. Also on the European level, MARE gained influence: one example is the city of Bergen, which participates as a demonstration city in the European climate forum.

Living North Sea (March 2009 – September 2012) The public/media launch in Gent (BE) in March 2010, attracted a broad range of attendance and included contributions from EU Commission representatives of DG Mare and DG Environment, and the Flemish Environment Ministry. The Ministry made a highly significant contribution to the project by committing, in public, to deal with the issues that the project was highlighting, and ceremonially releasing some young eels upstream of the migration barrier with the promise that the problem would be solved by the time the eels would be ready to migrate.

CLIWAT (September 2008 – September 2011) The CLIWAT project was presented in the Green Growth magazine, which was distributed to the participants of COP15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. Further the project was presented on the Danish Foreign Ministry website. The further development of the boards in each of the four countries and the final preparation of the transnational board meeting in Copenhagen gave an overview on different national approaches to adapt to climate change. Most urgent and needed demands for policies and measures with focus on groundwater were identified. Furthermore it was discussed which adaptation needs identified Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

could be supported by CLIWAT results. Ideas were exchanged transnationally and new information was acquired which can be helpful further in the project.

POWER Cluster (July 2008 – June 2011) The contacts made during the last reporting period bore fruit as the Power Cluster application made it to the midterm conference (alongside All Energy 2010) as part of the European Maritime Day, which has been approved during this reporting period.

SUSCOD (September 2009 – December 2013) The project was presented at the Open Days 2009 and to various stakeholders by the individual beneficiaries. Information on the SUSCOD project was provided for the use in the yearbook on the website of the Belgian Coastal Division.

IFP (June 2008 – June 2011) A mutual agreement between the Energy cluster and the European project 'Power Networks' was established to share knowledge and where possible work together. Through the Northern Netherlands consortium, contacts have been made with various clusters that work on foresight planning; Energy Vally (energy), Innexus (food SME’s) and Sensor Universe (advanced technology). As a result of the work with the fishery cluster in Central Denmark, the cluster coordinator has become a member of the Danish Ministry of Foods Committee on Development of Fishery. This Committee gives advice to the Government regarding the implementation of the EU fishery policy in Denmark. In Germany, IZET has used its competence on foresight planning to make the Steinburg County Future Conference a major success. This is one important activity within the framework of the regional program ”Vision Steinburg 2030”. In Agder, the cluster group in both the energy sector and in the advanced technology has been included into national programs.

NorthSea – SEP (September 2009 – August 2012) Within the frame of the UN Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009 (COP 15) the North Sea - Sustainable Energy Planning project (North Sea - SEP) carried out a meeting on 8 December 2009 (15-17h) at the Local Government Climate LOUNGE, organised by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability. Under the topic sustainable planning for an energy transformation in the North Sea region the project partners presented their ideas and activities. The project’s approach is based on the so called triple helix model – through a target-oriented and moderated cooperation of academic, financial and administrative institutions a plus of know-how will be created and made usable. Thus, international as well as national and regional goals for Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

climate and environment protection in the field of energy management and planning can be reached and implemented faster and more effectively.

Long Term Impact Achievements

DRYPORT (June 2008 – July 2012) One of the longer term impacts for the Frisian partner is a contact made with the private barge sector. One of them is a commercial partnership of European private-sector inland shipping companies who is interested to start operations or carry out a pilot test with barge shipping in Scotland and/or Sweden, in the Dryport project partners’ regions. As a result of this Friesland is consulting local companies and branch organisations that may play a role in the barge line initiative.

SKINT (October 2008 – October 2012) In November 2009 an alignment meeting was held in Paris with SAWA (Strategic Alliance for integrated Water management Actions, NSR), FRC (FloodResilienCity, NWE) and MARE (Managing Adaptive Responses to changing flood risk, NSR). The aim of this meeting was to explore the needs for collaboration between the four Interreg IVB projects and to explore the benefits of wider collaborations, such as the development of a common user focused portal for dissemination of outputs. As an outcome, it was agreed to develop a common framework and portal.

Transnationality Achievements

NS FRITS (January 2009 – December 2011) Transnational co-operation is highly evident in the joint development and implementation of activities for the NS FRITS project, e.g. with the Driver Survey, that was conducted in the UK, Germany and Sweden. The results are incorporated into system requirements that will be used for the development of the NS FRITS system - to be implemented and executed at strategic locations within the North Sea Region.

Smart Cities (September 2008 – August 2011) The project management has initiated a number of excellent mechanisms to stimulate joint working: • A schedule of monthly meetings to ensure cooperation across project partners, a requirement that partners report monthly on the project wiki, to allow project managers to develop a good overview of project activities and to identify areas of potential cooperation between partners; • The stimulation of bilateral work between project meetings; • Integrating academic work with municipal work; Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

• The continuous development of the project wiki, an online collaboration tool for the internal use of the partnership, which facilitates knowledge sharing between the partners and provides a collaborative environment where partners are able to jointly work together; • The introduction of Project Initiation Documents provides an explicit mechanism to link local work with planned transnational outputs; • Meetings, in which partners provide progress updates on local pilots, reviewed how these pilots were linked, and plan how they would feed into the project's transnational outputs.

MP4 (September 2008 – September 2012) The transnational learning strategy is being put into practice. The strategy is expected to allow the different perspectives and views from different national contexts on cross-cutting issues, model agreements, etc to be compared and discussed. This will contribute to a transnational understanding of practices in different national contexts, as well as of the potential facilitators of and barriers to transfer and adaptation of place-keeping practices across national boundaries. Transnational participation has taken place through the first joint planning group meeting in Bruges in December 2009. At the meeting, the partnership informed about the pilot project in Flanders giving them the opportunity to make suggestions regarding further planning and engaging them in a participative approach.

Innovation Achievements

ClimaFruit (October 2009 – September 2013) ClimaFruit is meeting its expectations towards innovation and transfer of results to industry; activities are highly innovative and interaction with industry stakeholders frequent. All project activities are focused on delivering innovation through introducing novel approaches to the berry fruit industry. Activities have included evaluating, testing and finding solutions to the: • performance of new plant material, new production methodologies; • development of new protocols and practises including growing under protected environments; • optimisation of spray technologies, determining alternative technologies to spraying. Outcomes from the activities in this reporting period have been communicated to industry partners. Climafruit is working closely with industry representatives (including Industry Boards, industry stakeholders, SMEs, consultants) to transfer and promote the new knowledge generated through this project to ensure its implementation.

IFP (June 2008 – June 2011) During this period, the method of foresight planning has been introduced to SMEs in the regional clusters. For most of the companies, especially in the food cluster, this represents a whole new way of doing strategic planning. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

The “How-to guide” on how to use the radar model for foresight planning in networks and regions is innovative in itself. This model was initially established for global companies that needed a simple method of prompting the flow of strategically significant information from the operational “grass root” of the company to those making strategic decisions. By making the model work for networks and regions, it gives a framework for future orientated planning that will promote innovation in the advanced technology clusters.

BLAST (October 2009 – September 2012) The project has promoted innovation within the North Sea Region during the reporting period through the introduction of the downloadable ''ENC checker' which works with the Electronical Nautical Chart (ENC's) for the entire North Sea area, has been extensively tested by Hydrographic offices in 6 countries during the development period.

Communications Achievements

ANSWER (September 2008 – August 2011) ANSWER attended the Open Days in Brussels, October 5-8 2009 and was invited as one of very few projects to present in the registration tent. The Open Days were identified as a key event to engage with stakeholders of the North Sea Area (NSC) and European wide institutions and projects dealing with energy efficiency, as well as professionals in the field and local policy-makers – i.e. the core target groups of the project. The event both resulted in a number of contacts being made with individuals from across the EU who were interested in the progress of ANSWER. It is considered important that the project remains abreast of the latest developments in a fast-moving area.

Smart Cities (September 2008 – August 2011) Smart Cities has been invited by the Flemish government to start preparations for a high-level international mainstreaming event on e-Government which will be held during the Belgian EU presidency. The conference in December 2010 will focus on “How national Governments can support/promote ICT and e-Government in local authorities”. This is an interesting and often overlooked issue that affects municipalities in all member states. A key theme in the presentations will be the search for “shared services” that can be shared/delivered with smaller municipalities with limited resources. Smart Cities is helping to develop the conference programme and to organise the conference. This event will be the project’s principal mainstreaming event, presenting the Smart Cities project’s transnational work to attendees from the NSR and elsewhere in the EU.

Living North Sea (March 2009 – September 2012) The project has already attracted external publicity on the basis of its activities, including TV and newspaper articles, the outcome being that the project is now well known amongst professionals, decision and policy makers within the sector, and there is a strong interest at a public level in the issues. Further project activities in The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden received TV, radio and newspaper coverage. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

SAWA (January 2008 – December 2011) The 3Di, a new way of presenting flood information for relevant stakeholders consists of two disciplines namely to integrate and have an interactive information management as well as the three dimensional visualisation of information to better understand decision. This new technique shall improve the manner in which water management information can be communicated to the public and (government) officials and policymakers. Its focus is to accelerate the water simulation model for supporting Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMP), to increase the accuracy of the models using detailed terrain models and to communicate the derived (modelled) information the public and officials through using 3D visualisation via an internet portal. The first idea of this approach was presented at the mid-term-conference in May 2010. The publicity activities have been intensified to promote the mid-term conference and to find the right link to the Working Group F within the Common Implementing Strategy (CIS) Process established by the European Commission. This includes the setting up of a conference website the building of fact sheets for all pilot projects.

CCC (September 2009 – August) Representatives of CCC promoted the project as keynote speakers at the Creative Industries and Creative Communities conference in Stoke-on-Trent (UK) on 11 November 2009. Further CCC promotion took place at the closing conference for the Year of Creativity and Innovation in Stockholm, 16–17 December 2009. Both conferences participation were aimed to increase awareness about the project and to underline the project’s objectives and envisaged activities. The “Creative City Challenge” has been chosen as a pilot project in the context of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation (EYCI). It is widely known that, in order to be sustainable, innovation requires wider and transnational collaboration. Find further information at http://www.creative-city-challenge.net/da/news/59-award-to-interreg-ivb-north-sea-project.html. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

2 IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS PER PROJECT

This chapter provides the status of each project running under the Programme that has reported in March 2010, as well as the progress made within the last reporting period. The projects are sorted according to the four programme priorities.

Priority 1 – Building on our Capacity for Innovation

Overall Implementation Status

Many of the 12 projects that reported in the March 2010 round under Priority 1 are midway through implementation and therefore in a stage of active implementation. Methods that were developed jointly are now being applied across the partner regions and regional testing has led to first results on the transnational level. In terms of the overarching aim, building capacity for innovation, two elements have become central. Firstly, the involvement of private partners and industry representatives has dominated much of the activities in this priority in terms of transferring results and promoting innovation. Secondly, projects are now deploying educational and training courses for their specific target groups, which have been developed by the partnerships in previous reporting rounds. This way, long term structures for training and development are being introduced that are able make a change regarding the region’s capacity for innovation. Three of the Priority 1 projects have reported for the first time; the focuses of activities here were centred on baseline analyses, establishing permanent networks, and launching promotion activities. Recognisable achievements in terms of publicity have been reached, e.g. the project Creative City Challenge (CCC) has already been awarded as a pilot project in the context of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation (EYCI). The summarised status on activities for each project under Priority 1 can be found in the following.

1.1 Building the innovation capacity of business

ERIP (June 2008 – June 2011) European Regions for Innovation – Report No. 3 The “Lean Change Methodology” has been built up through the partnership and defines the steps to undertake, the tools available for each of these steps and some measurement points. The first workshops have been held in the SME testers and a number of showcase events have been held across the regions, steered by specialists from the North East of England. A Transnational Network of Innovative Productivity Centres (IPCs) has been developed and established in the six countries. This provides a platform for transfer of knowledge on Lean production and builds capacity of SMEs to engage in innovation that will encourage and facilitate Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 joint transnational collaboration as well as act as focal point for initiatives to lean manufacturing knowledge across the North Sea Region. Information, transfer, training and consultation has been carried out for the promotion of innovation in SMEs by the application of Lean management methods and a stronger co-operation between SMEs, Universities and major industries. Through the showcases and other initiatives ERIP has endeavoured to inspire SMEs to use innovative practices to increase their productivity.

NMU (January 2008 – June 2012) Northern Maritime University – Report No. 4 As part of the peer review system three deliverables have now been reviewed by the project; the NMU service and product portfolio, the NMU course catalogue and the NMU business strategy (renamed from the marketing strategy). A module catalogue has also been finalised and e-learning material for Northern Maritime University modules (B, C, F and G) 2nd pilot have now been finished. In addition to this, the e-learning material for modules A and D are ready. Progress is also being made with the project’s two pilot courses with students. The first, from October 09 until January 2010. Here module F was taught on Intermodal transport. Module D on Logistics and Global Supply Chain is still running. For the second pilot course from February 2010 until May 2010 the following modules elements have been taught; module A on Applied Maritime Transport Management, module B on Maritime Economics, module C on Maritime Transport, module E on International Maritime Human Resource Management and module G on Ship Knowledge. The project has identified a Maritime Industry Panel Group which will give expert advice to the project and is seen as part of the project follow-up. The project’s 1st foresight exercise took place in October 09, with a second taking place in March 2010. Further foresight exercises are anticipated. There is continuous dialogue with project stakeholders through various means i.e. dissemination events and conferences.

1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks

NSSP (October 2008 – September 2011) North Sea Screen Partnership – Report No. 2 “Produce, Shoot, Post and Learn” – An NSSP Logo, print materials and website were created and launched in March 2010 under this headline. NSSP reports significant engagement with the industry in the delivery of master-classes, workshops and seminars. In relation to Knowledge & Skills Base, 2 exchange programmes including 8 master classes have been planned and delivered in collaboration with both corporate and educational partners to both local and exchange beneficiaries. Activity regarding Cluster Mapping to attract Inward Investments has commenced planning a series of industry events. A database of organisations for establishing horizontal and vertical connections has been commenced and is already well developed. Research on funding support and incentives is being jointly undertaken. The VERL Visual Effects Research Laboratory is the only facility of its kind and represents a truly innovative approach to facilitating Visual Effects in the region. VERL provides a well-equipped laboratory environment for researchers and partners in the creative industries throughout the North Sea Region to carry out new and innovative research. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

E-CLIC (September 2008 – April 2011) European Collaborative Innovation Centres for Broadband Media Services – Report No. 3 The E-CLIC partners have been very active over the last period and the E-CLIC centres’ activities (including the Living Lab/Pre-Incubator activities) have been very popular with lots of young people and companies who have experienced services development, media production and wireless technology. The project partners have attended two transnational workshops during this period, “Entrepreneurship Week” in Stavanger, Norway (12-16 October 2009), and a joint meeting between the two projects E-CLIC and Smart Cities in Bremerhaven, Germany (8-11 December 2009). The E-CLIC centres have also been involved in student exchange activities at CeBIT 2010 in Hannover. The work on student exchange programs has resulted in the establishment of a communication platform, http://e-clic-tv.ning.com.This will be used for all further student exchange activities. Several transnational and regional initiatives regarding services development, media production and wireless technology resulted in Case Studies, Prototypes or Media Productions. During the reporting period six Case Studies, one Prototype and two Media Productions have been completed, and a Database for WP-project ideas has been developed. E-CLIC can now be found on Facebook, Twitter and WordPress.

SmartCities (September 2008 – August 2011) Smart Cities – Report No. 3 Midway through the Smart Cities project, the first transnational outputs have been delivered: a customer profiling guide has been published that is based on transnational cooperation between academics and governments, and is built upon the experience of delivering local projects. The production of a draft EU service list is almost complete, which has the potential to set a new standard in service delivery of local authorities in Europe. In addition, the organisation of the production of a contact centre publication is complete and relevant material is being developed. The academic network has continued its evaluation work, developed monitoring and evaluation tools, and published a project guide and a number of academic publications. The Smart Cities project contributed to the ePractice workshop on “Efficient and Effective eGovernment” in Brussels on March 2010. This workshop was an initiative of DG INFSO, European Commission. In addition, Smart Cities has recently been invited by the Flemish government to start preparations for an event on e-Government, which will be held during the Belgian EU presidency. The local projects are progressing and are tied in closely with transnational outputs. The project has introduced mechanisms to further stimulate joint working. The project is continuing to work to spread its message to other academic and governmental organisations, both in the national states and at the EU level. By using a mix of online tools, specific messages can be sent to a wide range of target groups who are interested in the Smart Cities work.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

ClimaFruit (October 2009 – September 2013) Future proofing the North Sea berry fruit industry in times of climate change – Report No. 1 All ClimaFruit project activities are focused on delivering innovation through introducing novel approaches to the berry fruit industry. Activities in the initial period have included evaluating, testing and finding solutions to the performance of new plant material, new production methodologies, development of new protocols and practises including growing under protected environments, optimising spray technologies, determining alternative technologies to spraying. A new transnational cultivar trial was established across the 5 partner countries and considerable activities were carried out on increasing the knowledge on sustainability of berries. Focusing on adaptation strategies, studies were carried out to determine the potential impact of climate change on fruit quality – these preliminary studies showed that minor temperature changes can significantly alter fruit quality from what is currently considered ideal. Outcomes from the activities in this reporting period have been continuously communicated to industry partners. Climafruit is working closely with industry representatives (including Industry Boards, industry stakeholders, SMEs, consultants) to transfer and promote the new knowledge generated through this project to ensure its implementation. ClimaFruit has established a transnational and horizontal network of researchers as well as a transnational Political Reference Group, with 2 members representing each participating nation. This period involved launching the project through a significant volume of promotional activities with public, industry, science and political sectors via a variety of formats. A significant level of scientific publications was released in relation to the ClimaFruit project. A project website was established: www.climafruit.com.

POYO (January 2009 – January 2012) The Port is Yours – Report No. 2 After the initial start up phase project activities are now being further developed. The project partners have already started with the purchase of equipment necessary for their Centre of Excellence (CoE). Activities to build up the CoE have begun also at Gateshead. The Belgian CoE will be located in Kortrijk, Flanders and is hoped to be ready after the summer 2010; Newcastle College also identified the place where their CoE will be built up. Project partners developed a questionnaire and templates necessary to implement the inventory of existing educational courses in maintenance. Questionnaires were submitted to local companies and other stakeholders in the Poyo countries. The project partners also used the period to discuss and develop further the 'road show' concept. The road shows will be a one-day event where local companies of the maintenance sector as well as other key stakeholders should be present. The road shows are planned to start in 2011 when all the CoE’s will be operative. Poyo partners are now busy spreading information among SME’s about this upcoming event. The German partners organised a local “round table” to promote Poyo and to start the debate about market’s needs in terms of professional figures or competences. This round table was one of the steps the project is taking to build up a local cluster about maintenance in port areas. The project partners have been busy developing contacts in the field. The Lead Beneficiary has found a European Body (the EFNMS, European Federation of National Maintenance Societies) which should be the relevant body with which to discuss certification in the maintenance sector at EU level. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

POWER Cluster (July 2008 – June 2011) Developing the North Sea Offshore Wind Power Cluster – Report No. 3 The transnational study on grid issues is well underway and should be completed during the next reporting period. For example, the ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity), Chalmers University of Technology (CHA) developed the effects of offshore wind power from the North Sea on e.g. market price, power trading and transmission capacity. This will contribute towards the research regarding the European super grid. CHA has also contributed to the work with mapping the industries that have products suitable to be used in the offshore wind application. Aalborg University (AAU) in cooperation with CHA have followed the work, the modelling of the existing grids is now connected. Moreover, a Master study course “Wind energy technique" started at Hochschule Bremerhaven (HS BHV) with 15 participants (30% female, 15% foreigners). The project also joined the Climate Action Platform produced in partnership with UNEP and was advertised in the 2009-2010 version for the COP15 Conference. In the meantime, the consortium prepared and organised – a major part of – the Midterm Conference which was held in Aberdeen 18th to 20th May, in parallel with the All-Energy 2010 conference. Finally, the contacts made during the last reporting period bore fruit as the Power Cluster application made it to the midterm conference (alongside All Energy 2010) as part of the European Maritime Day, which has been approved during this reporting period.

IFP (June 2008 – June 2011) Innovative Foresight Planning for Business Development – Report No. 3 During this period, the method of foresight planning has been introduced to SME’s in the regional clusters. For most of the companies, especially in the food cluster, this represents a whole new way of doing strategic planning. The IFP project is in a very active phase of implementation: All clusters (Food, Advanced Technology, Energy and Finance) have finished their SWOT analyses and are in the phase of applying foresight planning methods, both nationally and transnationally. First regional foresight processes have also taken place during the past period. Businesses are being more directly involved, e.g. as participants in foresight processes as well as in cluster and network development. Plans are made for business to business meetings both on regional and transnational levels. Within the different clusters common focus areas have been identified, such as sensor technology, offshore wind and long term trends on the consumer side in the food sector. A framework and new methods are being developed on how to compile and systematize the results from the different cluster groups and regions, to be able to exchange knowledge between the partners and to make recommendations on how to use foresight planning in cluster development. The IFP project has furthermore achieved some considerable achievements in relation to cooperating with related initiatives as well as to impact policy. For example, as a result of the work with the fishery cluster in Central Denmark, the cluster coordinator has become member of the Danish Ministry of Foods Committee on Development of Fishery. This Committee gives advice to the Government regarding the implementation of the EU fishery policy in Denmark.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

1.3 Building the society’s and the institutional capacity for innovation

SKINT (October 2008 – October 2012) North Sea Skills Integration and New Technologies – Report No. 1 During the past period, SKINT started a co-operation with SAWA (Strategic Alliance for integrated Water management Actions, NSR), FRC (FloodResilienCity, NWE) and MARE (Managing Adaptive Responses to changing flood risk, NSR). The aim of this collaboration is the development of a common user focused web portal for dissemination of outputs. SKINT was represented at the Aqua Alta International Conference and Exhibition on Climate Change and Flood protection in Hamburg in November 2009 as well as at the UN Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen with a side event on sustainable water management: Seminar “Climate Change + Sustainable Water Management”. The SKINT website (www.skintwater.eu) is now online. Within project implementations, good examples of multidisciplinary projects were defined and spatial feature maps with water management preconditions for urbanization were created. Furthermore four examples of good integration between water management and spatial planning were extensively investigated. A 'Skint Sustainability Survey' was carried out and a framework for sustainability assessment was developed. Good progress was made with Work Package 5 “Training the Champions of Change”: The development of three online pilot courses has taken place and one (SUDS Concepts and Design Principles) has been successfully trialled. Also, the development of a prototype of an interactive animated catchments model has been completed. The model is designed to provide a range of different training scenarios for a wide range of professionals including water industry, local authority and emergency services and to provide an alternative means to develop learning.

CCC (September 2009 – August 2012) Creative City Challenge – Report No. 1 During the initial period of the project, Creative City Challenge has already been awarded as a pilot project in the context of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation (EYCI). This recognizes that, in order to be sustainable, innovation requires wider and transnational collaboration. Further information is available at http://www.creative-city-challenge.net/da/news/59-award-to-interreg-ivb- north-sea-project.html. Within the work packages, several local pilots have been initiated and partners have delivered input to a best practice guide that was published in the format of a brochure and identifies successful tools to support linkages and cooperation within creative industries and with traditional industries. All project partners contributed with regional data input to the SWOT analysis that will discover the current state of the creative sector in all partner regions. Concepts for future activities have been developed (e.g. the NSR creativity award for best practice) and the implementation of these activities has been initiated. The project website (www.creative-city.challenge.net) has been designed and launched.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

NORTHSEA SUPPLY (October 2009 – September 2012) North Sea Supply Connect – Report No. 1 The project has just begun and work has therefore largely been centred on its start up phase. Work undertaken by the project reflects this, with initial partner meetings in Groningen in Sept.09 and in Brugge Feb.10, discussions about co-operation with the sister Baltic Supply project, appointment of cluster leaders and the development of a communication plan taking place. Initial work has also begun in work package (3) on an evaluation strategy for the North and Baltic Sea projects/gathering of information for the portal focusing on marine, energy, food and health. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

Priority 2 – The Sustainable Management of our Environment

Overall Implementation Status

For the March 2010 reporting round, 6 projects submitted their first activity report, another 6 their second report and 3 their third report. Those projects reporting for the third time (SAWA, enerCOAST and CLIWAT) have already displayed a number of visible and tangible results. For instance, the SAWA project has established four Sustainability Education Centres (SEC’s) and student exchange has started. The planning of transnational master education has started with a planned delivery in spring 2011. In addition, several projects (C2CI and Ballast Water Opportunity) are already displaying some truly innovative features in their projects. For instance, the C2CI project hopes to mark the beginnings of developing a new industry sector in an island group and diversifying an island economy heavily reliant on traditional industries such as fisheries and aquaculture. While the project Ballast Water Opportunity has continued the ongoing work of co-development of both technology and enforcement legislation which will facilitate the compliance enforcement. The results of this working group under co-ordination of the Netherlands Ministry of Transport will directly influence the decisions of NSR national administrations when implementing legislation according to the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention. A number of projects have contributed to European policies and created potential impacts on a long-term basis. For instance, the implementation process of the EC Flood Directive (FD) has been supported by SAWA, MARE and DiPol. All six projects which reported for the first time kicked-off their activities successfully and established their partnership agreements. Most of the projects have already launched their websites and some have published their first reports. For instance, the project BLAST has presented reports on the national policies, practices, institutional set-ups and data requirements regarding integrated coastal zone management in Denmark, Norway, Belgium and United Kingdom. Together with a paper on EU policies concerning ICZM, these contributions are currently being put together into a comprehensive report. The summarised status on activities for each of the projects can be found in the following.

2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal zone management

BLAST (October 2009 – September 2012) Bringing Land and Sea Together – Report No. 1 The BLAST Kick-off meeting was arranged on the 28-30 October 2009. Some tangible outputs are already visible. Notably, the reports on the national policies, practices, institutional setups and data requirements regarding integrated coastal zone management in Denmark, Norway, Belgium and United Kingdom have been written. Together with a paper on EU Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 policies concerning ICZM, these contributions are currently being put together into a comprehensive report. The survey result is published as a report. The title is “State of the Art: Nautical Information Management in 3 North Sea Port States”. It shows how the discrepancy reporting is in Norway, Denmark and Germany. The results will be the input to the activities starting in the second period.

TIDE (January 2010 – December 2012) Tidal River Development – Report No. 1 The TIDE Kick-Off Conference took place in Antwerp on February 22nd 2010. It involved external speakers up to EU level i.e. Francois Kremer, EU Commission; Victor de Jonge, EMS estuary; Charles Simenstad – US estuaries; Pierre Bona, GIP Loire informing about the value of the TIDE project and linking into other estuary developments. In addition, a first set of local press-articles and TV news were published to highlight start of project. Furthermore, there was a TV broadcast about the project on regional television (ATV on March 8th 2010) and a Lloyd TV web-cast (February 23rd 2010). The project has progressed well in its start-up phase, with different activities being initiated within each of the projects six work packages. Activities undertaken include the establishment of the project management and communication systems, initial/research orientated work i.e. experience gathering/collection of data and preparatory or kick off meetings. Guidance has also been produced for each of the work packages – prepared in cooperation with the project partners.

LNS (March 2009 – September 2012) Living North Sea – Report No. 2 The LNS highlight has been the public and media launch in Gent, Belgium in March 2010. The event attracted a broad range of attendance and included contribution from European Commission representatives of DG Mare and DG Environment, and the Flemish Environment Ministry. The Ministry made a significant contribution to the project by committing ceremonially, to deal with the issues that the project was highlighting. This period has been dominated by activities in preparation for the implementation of an action plan to fill essential knowledge gaps in key migratory fish species and development of a number of innovative solution demonstrations for key migratory fish barriers. Practical work has begun, for example, with a number of fish tagged this season to elucidate migratory routes and to examine behaviour at barriers, particularly hydropower schemes and pumping stations. Throughout the activities partners are working transnationally in sub-groups not based on their geographic origins but rather on the topics of interest, their particular skills or the required knowledge. The project has attracted publicity on the basis of these activities, the outcome being that the project is now well known amongst professionals, decision and policy makers within the sector, and there is a strong interest at public level in the issues.

SUSCOD (September 2009 – December 2013) Sustainable Coastal Development in Practise – Report No. 1 The project Sustainable Coastal Development in Practice (SUSCOD) will develop an innovative Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM)-assistant. This practical web based tool will allow Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 coastal development practitioners to fully realize coastal potentials: economic, social and environmental. The project has progressed sufficiently since its inception. The work packages are on track and on time. The Co-ordination Centre for ICZM has set up the state of the art inventory (questionnaire) and sent it to all beneficiaries. An initial analysis has already been discussed with the partnership at the last partnership meeting in Nordenham in March 2010. A detailed analysis and comparison will be completed in October 2010. The analysis focuses on the pilot areas specifically related to coastal protection; this had not been done before. In addition, the project was presented at the Open Days 2009, and information on the project was also provided for use in the year book on the website of the Belgian Coastal Division.

2.2 Developing preventive and responsive measures to address acute and chronic marine pollution

Ballast Water (January 2009 – December 2012) North Sea Ballast Water Opportunity – Report No. 2 The ongoing work of co-development of both technology and enforcement legislation will facilitate the compliance enforcement. The results of this working group under co-ordination of the Netherlands Ministry of Transport will directly influence the decisions of NSR national administrations when implementing legislation according to the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention. Harmonized action by the group will help to avert fractious legislation impeding efficient maritime traffic in the NSR. In addition, the first draft guideline for the approval via land based testing of Ballast water management systems was provided by NIOZ (already submitted with the first Periodical Report on Activities). The continuing work has been focusing on methods for sampling ballast water at using an operational ballast water system in real live conditions. Data still needs to be evaluated and will be displayed in future reports. The continuous work will focus on UV systems, chlorine systems, toxicity and human exposure and health. Another important issue during the reporting period was the continuous work concerning the test beds. Five new developers and vendors of Ballast Water Treatment (BWT) systems, at different stages of development have found their way to NIOZ Interreg pilot test bed and many more contacted NIOZ during the reporting round. Extensive discussions and cooperation for testing will now be done at different levels (feasibility studies, component and full scale pilot studies) using the pilot test bed. The project has increased and strengthened its transnational position as it was invited and recognized by for instance the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the Trilateral Ministerial Wadden Sea Conference.

2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate

CPA (July 2008 – December 2011) Climate Proof Areas – Report No. 1 The project has continued the analysis (WP1) over existing information on the expected impact of climate change on the various partner regions involved in the project. Five draft analysis reports have been implemented. During the next bi-annual meeting in Arvika, Sweden, a final discussion of WP1 results is foreseen. The work on the pilot adaptation measures (WP 2), which is focused on Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 the joint development and testing will be bundled in a toolkit for adaptation for the North Sea Region and also widely disseminated to stakeholders within the Programme area, has also been continued since the first reporting round. Policy recommendations, based from WP 1 & 2, will be mobilised through by means of communication actions (WP 5), but also by the proposal of a MoU to the North Sea Commission together with the recommendations (WP 3) and the toolkit (WP 4).

BioCHAR (October 2009 – October 2013) Climate Changing Soils – Report No.1 BioChar carried out activities in relation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009. The Biochar project will be presented at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day held by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) on 12 December. Project partners prepared in cooperation with the International Biochar Initiative for this purpose an information flyer. A project exhibition booth and informative video completed the information package. Specialists from the UKBRC (UK Biochar research centre) from the University of Edinburgh were invited by the EU JRC (Joint Research centre) on a side event on the 7th of December organized by the European Commission. Bioforsk from Norway, another project partner were invited to give presentation at a side event organized in the Bellona centre. The NSR Biochar project was clearly present at the Climate conference. The other main activities in the first period were attributed to fill in the definitions, protocols and requirements for the transnational cooperation regarding Biochar. Therefore several dedicated working groups were established.

MARE (January 2009 – December 2011) Managing Adaptive Responses to Change Flood Risk in the North Sea Region – Report No. 2 The transnational Climate Proofing Framework (CPF) has been completed. Demonstration projects in 4 regions are geared up to test and feed back into the CPF. Learning and Action Alliances (LAAs) successfully established links to policy makers. For example in the Netherlands by being awarded status of national pilot for the Multi Level Safety policy. Also on the European level, MARE gained influence.

CLIWAT (September 2008 – September 2011) Adaptive and sustainable water management and protection of society and nature in an extreme climate – Report No. 3 During the period from October 1st 2009 to March 31st 2010 the main focus has been on field work, innovative measures, national and transnational stakeholder involvement, and dissemination. The field work in the seven pilot areas has been continued. In some pilots the field work has been finished. The field work includes geophysical surveys, drillings, water sampling, etc. The large amount of data collected in the previous period has been processed and interpretation started. The interpretation of the data shows good results in relation to data quality and the further use. The data collected is incorporated into models to give a better understanding of the hydrological system’s physical and chemical conditions. In addition, development of databases and the design of the shared geological 3D model are evolving as planned and will be used in other WPs, especially WP 5 (Geological modelling) and WP 6 (Hydrological and climate scenario modelling). Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

The further development of the boards in each of the four countries and the final preparation of the transnational board meeting in Copenhagen gave an overview on different national approaches to adapt to climate changes. Most urgent and needed demands for policies and measures with focus on groundwater were identified. Furthermore it was discussed which adaptation needs identified could be supported by CLIWAT results. Ideas were exchanged transnationally and new information was acquired which can be helpful further in the project.

SAWA (June 2008 – December 2011) Strategic Alliance for Integrated Water Management Actions – Report No.3 SAWA has now reached its mid-term. The working group has established a common understanding about stakeholder involvement and needed material to communicate and build the necessary capacity for the implementation process of the EC Flood Directive. This important building block also contributes to the strategy development in work package one. The preparation for the mid-term conference in Gothenburg in May 2010 addresses how SAWA is working to implement EC water policy on a local level. The publicity activities have been intensified to promote the mid-term conference and to find the right link to the Working Group F within the CIS, Common Implementing Strategy Process established by the European Commission. This includes the setting up of a conference website the building of fact sheets for all pilot projects. The 3Di, a new way of presenting flood information for relevant stakeholders, consists of two disciplines namely to integrate and have an interactive information management as well as the three dimensional visualisation of information to better understand decision. This new technique shall improve the manner in which water management information can be communicated to civilians and (government) officials and policymakers. Its focus is to accelerate the water simulation model for supporting Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMP), to increase the accuracy of the models using detailed terrain models and to communicate the derived (modelled) information the public and officials through using 3D visualisation via an internet portal. The first ideas of this approach were presented at the mid-term-conference in May 2010.

AQUARIUS (January 2009 – December 2011) The Farmer as Water Manager under Changing Climatic Conditions – Report No.2 During the second reporting period of Aquarius, the main focus has been on: • Smooth project management securing close interrelations among the project partners, among the stakeholders in the pilots and the Work Packages; • Finishing and communicating a common baseline which has provided a common understanding of the 7 catchments and the conditions under which they operate; • Working with key methods to help dealing with increased temperature, nutrient losses, flooding and droughts. The main focus has been on technical methods. This work is almost finished. Now primary focus is on financial and institutional key methods, as well as of dissemination and demonstration of the project and the project idea. The work with key methods gave the experts from the different pilots a number of innovative ideas on how to create win-win methods for farmers, as well as the water environment in a changing climate. The work with key methods continues in the third reporting period.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

DiPol (January 2009 – December 2011) Impact of Climate Change on the quality of urban and coastal waters – Report No. 3 During the March 2010 reporting period the activities of the DiPol consortium mainly focussed on investigations at the four case studies, including comprehensive sampling and monitoring campaigns. The results of these activities are representing the foundation of the database for the assessment of climate change induced impacts on water quality. The sampling and monitoring work at the case studies has been complemented by a series of workshops on both, work package and working group level. These workshops brought together experts and expertise from different countries of the North Sea Region, thus representing an excellent example for the transnational approach intended by the DiPol project. The workshops on 'Risk Analysis' were mainly concerned with an exchange of samples, results and data as well as an optimisation of the activities coordination. The current analytical work (on samples from the four case studies) is partly conducted at specialised laboratories in The Netherlands (toxicological tests) and Germany (pathogenic bacteria). Workshops on 'SIMACLIM' led to a common understanding regarding the communication and simulation tool and prepared the joined basis for its establishment during the year 2010.

2.4 Promoting environmentally responsible energy production practices

enerCoast (June 2008 – May 2012) BlueGreen Coastal Energy Community – Report No. 3 Following completion of the Initiation and Analysis phases (WP1 and 2) activities in reporting period 3 concentrated on Supply Chain Mobilization (WP3), i. e. on setting the scene for the commencement of the regional supply chain projects driven by a common business approach. These activities comprised the issue of sub-contracts, commissioning of surveys and studies to close knowledge gaps in the selected supply chains, partner research activities, intensive stakeholder consultations with a view to preparing investment decisions and cooperative exchange within the partnership. The result of the mobilisation effort is a streamlined methodology shared by all partners and the specification of a range of highly focussed regional optimization projects supported by competent regional networks. The project is on track and the regional optimization projects are underway.

C2CI (January 2009 – December 2012) Cradle to Cradle Islands – Report No. 2 The current reporting period of the C2CI project produced valuable deliverables and results. The process, organisation and development phase has been completed and the pilot and implementation phase has started. The close cooperation of the three development clusters (energy/mobility, energy/water and energy/materials) of the project resulted in strengthening the transnational approach and partnership providing a good opportunity for spreading and exchanging knowledge, experiences and innovative ideas related to the project and its themes. The main outputs on this stage have been seen in the following activities: In energy/mobility cluster the concept of blue energy is being tested in a demonstration site at Harlingen seaport; Interactive Energy SWOT tool has been further developed and work continues with Interactive Water SWOT Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 tool. The Marine Renewable Development Project on Shetlands is looking at the promotion of an island for the development of marine renewable energy and also putting in place a system of marine spatial planning to make sure that prospective developers have information they require to select the most appropriate sites for development for their technologies. The project hopes to mark the beginnings of developing a new industry sector in an island group and diversifying an island economy heavily reliant on traditional industries such as fisheries and aquaculture.

NorthSea – SEP (September 2009 – August 2012) North Sea Sustainable Energy Planning – Report No. 1 The project North Sea - SEP deals with the promotion of sustainable energy planning, using a holistic approach including energy production, energy saving, innovation through energy, value chains and a reduction of energy imports. It aims at working in cross-sectoral networks, to exchange know-how and to develop a strategy on regional planning. The project started with a pre-kick-off meeting for administrative implementation in Oldenburg (DE), followed up by an official kick-off meeting in Dundee (UK) and a Think-Tank meeting in Middlefart (DK). All work groups were established, including the transnational think-tank. The transnational work started in some activities faster than expected. One of the biggest tasks was the participation within the framework of the COP15 conference, where the project was present and managed to have half a day speeches concerning tools of energy planning in local and regional context. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

Priority 3 – Improving the Accessibility of Places in the NSR

Overall Implementation Status

With two approved projects reporting for a second time, one for the third time and another a fourth time, project activities are running in various stages in this priority. For the project Stratmos, reporting for the fourth time, results are now forthcoming as an outcome of project activity. For example, in work package C final reports on Analysing Complementary Ports in a Region, and Development of a MoS Integrated Dryport Concept were finalised. Final results on "Identifying and Analysing the Characteristics of Complementary Ports: A Study of Ports in the North Sea Region" were also presented to the project partnership. For the project reporting for the third time (Dryport) activities in all work packages are being worked upon, for example, each partner is in the process of developing their own dryport sights. The two projects reporting a second time have passed through their kick off stages and are now making good progress with their activities. There has been significant attention to analysis gathering data and research as well as starting work package activities. Some good examples of transnational cooperation can be seen in practice. For example, Dryport has development management tools in order to enhance the projects transnational capabilities. NS Frits are working on their transnational NS FRITS system – to be implemented and executed at strategic locations within the North Sea Region. Cross fertilization between the projects in this priority has also been a particular feature. For example, the Stratmos, NS Frits and Dryport projects have been meeting to discuss areas of mutual interest and possibilities for joint co-operation. The summarised status on activities for each project under Priority 3 can be found in the following.

3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies

CARE-North (August 2009 – August 2012) Carbon Responsible Transport Strategies for the North Sea Area – Report No. 2 On the 8th-11th November 2009 the kick-off meeting was held in Bremen. Connected to the kick-off meeting was an electric mobility conference, which CARE-North partners participated in. In December 2009 the project was also busy preparing for its participation in the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. The lead beneficiary has been selected with the theme of car-sharing as one out of three world-wide selected “Urban Best Practice Example” for presentations on thematic workshops in May and September 2010. With regards the calculation of CO2 reduction activities have centred on the development of the public consultation and carbon modelling activities by the Robert Gordon University (Aberdeen). This work has been undertaken initially in the abstract, with recent reference to more specific Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 proposals being considered within the city. Gothenburg has also installed ten telematics systems in different car models/makes. Focus has been on getting the data transmission working correctly. Measuring so far has included; distance driven, driving time, speeding index, eco index, % speeding, idling time and number of trips. The activities from Bremen in the field of electric mobility as one potential activity of CO2-reduction, led to further workshops and joint activities with other stakeholders in Bremen and the region. The German partner Swb presented the first electric VW Golf version and charging infrastructure in Bremen. This one procured e-car has been prepared for use in the swb car pool by the following measures; first tests of range, liability, handling, German translation of the instruction manual and the development of a questionnaire for a user-rating on electric vehicles (EV) and charging infrastructure. CARE North has produced a range of outputs to understand the economic (GVA) and carbon consequences of transport interventions, ranking potential schemes by carbon reduction output and carbon reduced per € invested. This is being used to inform CARE North thinking on the development and use of carbon budgets in investment prioritisation.

3.2 To promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors

StratMoS (April 2009 – March 2011) Motorways of the Sea Strategic Demonstration Project - Report No. 4 The project has been actively working with activities in both its work packages and demonstration projects. The International StratMoS Conference organised by the University of Hull Logistics Institute took place in Hull in November 2009, it included a WP A meeting. During this event, participants received information on current MoS funding opportunities in the framework of the EU Trans European Network for Transport and Marco Polo funding programmes (from representatives of the North Sea MoS Task Force, the UK Ministry of Transport and the EC). Considerable links were made with other European projects, including IVB projects, such as Cruise Gateway, Northern Maritime University, Dryport and NS Frits, but also with former Interreg IIIB projects (Sutranet, SustAccess and NMC) and projects from other programmes (SMART-CM (FP7 project), Integrity (FP7 project), and TransBaltic (BSR project). In work package C final reports on Analysing Complementary Ports in a Region, and Development of a MoS Integrated Dryport Concept were finalised. Final results on "Identifying and Analysing the Characteristics of Complementary Ports: A Study of Ports in the North Sea Region" were also presented in Hull. In demonstration project 3, Hafen Hamburg Marketing carried out extensive research on worldwide shipping line development, influences of container ship size development, influences of shipping line market concentration, new requirements resulting for feeder operations and possible strategies to replace feeder services by alternative.

3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions

NS FRITS (January 2009 – December 2011) North Sea Freight and Intelligent Transport Solutions – Report No. 2 The project has started its second phase, with focus being placed on system research and development. A number of important events have taken place including the International Management Group meeting/Transport Security Seminar, which took place in Rotterdam in Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

February 2010. In November 2009, an NS FRITS meeting was held in Gothenburg, Sweden where NS FRITS partners from four countries (UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden) discussed system requirements, data source identification and future development activities. Agreements have also been made for the project to share data with a range of regional and national transport agencies. For example, the UK Highways Agency and Traffic Scotland and The Netherlands National Traffic Management Centre. This data will be edited and transmitted using the NS FRITS system. NS FRITS partners have liaised with representatives from the ten EU projects that have been identified for collaborative working as well as collaborating with EU-wide organisations including: IRU, UIC, TISPOL and AQUAPOL. The Data Distribution Service developed as part of the satellites in the FP6 SISTER project (Support of Transport on European Roads) has been obtained and adapted for use in NS FRITS. Project representatives also attended a workshop at VTEC (Swedish project with a similar scope to NS FRITS) at Lindholme Science Park, Gothenburg, in January 2010. A range of activities have been carried out during the reporting period including a Driver Survey, which was not only conducted in the UK but also Germany and Sweden. The results of which being incorporated into System Requirements that will be used for the development of the NS FRITS system - to be implemented and executed at strategic locations within the North Sea Region. In addition, three pilot planning meetings took place with NS FRITS partners in January, February and March 2010 where the pilot definition process and proposed a methodology was discussed and a common understanding of what the NS FRITS system will demonstrate agreed.

Dryport (June 2008 – July 2012) A modal shift in practice – Report No. 3 The project is now making considerable progress within each of the projects' work packages and by all of the project partners in developing their Dryport sites. Analysis of freight flows, strengths and weaknesses of the particular region, prepared tenders for land reviews, visualisation projects, rail identity systems or research all took place. The regional focus also continued with focus on tenders, research for and contacts with major potential Dryport sites. The project partner Haven Gateway is working on a Containerised Cargo Carbon Calculator (CCCC), which will provide innovate development in the Logistics sector. Work on the CCCC is now underway and consultants have a number of major haulers and business who will pilot the web based carbon calculation system. If successful the calculator will be able to show modal shift of actual cargo with those organisations using it. The system is expected to be ready and live by September 2010. Co-operation with other Interreg projects took place including NS FRITS and StratMoS. Links have also be made with the new Interreg IVB project Food Port Regions and Interreg IVC project, Port Integration, which is about developing links to the hinterland. The Dryport partnership had two events. The Emmen workshop on Transport and Security took place in November 2009, where speakers talked about customs, relations to gateway Rotterdam and secure transport. The Swedish partner presented their rail identification project at the event. The international Dryport conference also took place in 24-25 September 2009 in Harlingen, Friesland. Business Development, Friesland who organised the annual conference presented an extensive report at their home page with clips from radio and local television interviews. As a follow-up all local and international participants and interested (about 150 people in total) received the conference report by email, including a link to the broadcast made by local TV station ‘Omrop Fryslan’ on the conference. Interviews with Harlingen mayor Paul Scheffer and Dryport manager Dirk Harmsen appeared at the local TV news as opening news item of the daily news program 'Hjoed'. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

The project has been using its project management group to enhance transnational co-operation within the project. The group is represented by all regions and in cases representatives for each partner in a region and was started in September 2009 in order to focus on the delivery of transnational outcomes. The group has now met twice and its main function has been to discuss and plan transnational co-operation and various partner engagements within the projects work packages.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

Priority 4 – Promoting Sustainable and Competitive Communities

Overall Implementation Status

Most of the eight projects that reported in the March 2010 round under Priority 4 have moved from start-up towards development and implementation phase. The grounds were prepared previously so that pilots and investments are being carried currently. Thus, the centre of activities lies on implementing diverse pilot solutions across the region regarding the project’s specific fields of actions, such as demographic change, rural empowerment, public space maintenance and energy efficient buildings. Implementation approaches are aiming to enable businesses and communities to move towards competitiveness and sustainability. The past reporting round has seen the transnational strategies being put into practice. For example, the MP4’s transnational learning strategy is expected to allow the different perspectives and views from different national contexts to be compared and discussed. This will contribute to transnational understanding of practices in different national context, as well as of the potential facilitators and barriers to transfer and adaptation of place- keeping practices across national boundaries. Projects under priority 4 are starting to be heard on the political level and have continuously worked within publicity and contributed to national debates. First results and publications have led to contact and generated support by European level institutions such as the Committee of the Regions and the European Commission. The summarised status on activities for each of the projects under Priority 4 can be found in the following.

4.1 Tackling the needs of areas in decline

DC Noise (June 2008 – June 2011) Demographic Change: New opportunities in shrinking Europe – Report No. 3 The DC NOISE midterm conference took place on 24th March 2010 in Hamburg. For the 9 European regions involved in the project a prognoses of demographic decline was discussed. Activities to make actors and companies aware of demographic change and potential problems at the Knowledge Park – Kennispark (Twente, the Netherlands) took place. East/West Flanders and Hamburg, Germany have been looking at senior employees and their competence in the public sector. Norway working on stimulating workers between 62 and 65 years in order not to retire. In Groningen, the Netherlands, activities have taken place regarding attracting new/keeping existing people for health care jobs and instrument for strategic personnel capacity planning. Hamburg worked on a supporting neighbour network and their first results of the social area analysis on the current socio-demographic data are now available. Activity on the transnational pilot on "EU-labour market" has taken place and a template for gathering information has been designed.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

VITAL (January 2009 – June 2013) Vital Rural Area – Report No. 2 In the period September 2009 to March 2010, project partners started to develop and implement pilot projects in relation to empowering SMEs, branding of the region and optimizing services. This includes for example the development of a course on renewable energy and setting up the pilot activities “learn and work” and “learn and innovate” using the triple helix (authorities, private companies, knowledge institutes) as the central model. The participating regions are developing and promoting regional brands. In connection to optimizing services, activities such as the virtual service desk and the pilot Smart Rural Network Society have been initiated. The virtual service desk aims to re-introduce services of e.g. banks, tax offices and insurance companies into small villages, but now in a digital way. The Smart Rural Network Society is an umbrella pilot that aims to combine a community and services hotspot with a digital and interactive social network at home: a new view on the traditional multi-functional community centre.

4.2 Promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas

CA! (June 2009 – December 2012) Coast Alive! – Report No. 2 In general, the project is moving on from start-up to development and implementation phase. Stakeholder groups have now been established and there has also been discussion about how Coast Alive and EURISY (a European Non-profit Association Bridging Space and Society) can cooperate together in the future. The reporting period and the political group met for the second time in March 2010. This should result in further dialogue with the North Sea Commission. In work package 2 the following three themes are being worked on; Active Coast, Community Coast and Open Coast and initiatives taken place to support/test work within these themes. The purpose of these groups are to explore and develop proposals for initiatives that will mobilise users of the path networks to be included in the projects final Toolkit. In work package 3 the group met three times; the first in Leeuwarden in October 2009 where there was a presentation from Landschapsbeer Fryslan on how they had worked with local communities on redeveloping old paths and collecting detailed local history; the second meeting in Boston, in December where each partner linked climate risk to their work on heritage in short presentations. The event included a presentation from Richard Lamb from the UK Climate Impact Panel and by the President of the UK Federation of Small Business, John Wright OBE on the opportunities for small business from increased activities around natural and cultural heritage. There was also discussion with Tedora Secara from EURISY about how Coast Alive and EURISY could cooperate. The third meeting in Skagen was in March.

SURF (September 2009 – August 2012) Sustainable Urban Fringes – Report No. 2 The project has been busy with start up activities although general project activity is starting to be undertaken in each of the work packages. Project partners have been liaising together to organise future events, work package leaders have been communicating and exchanging knowledge/best practice and each partner has also been busy in his/her own country setting up stakeholder and local groups. In Work Package 3 key themes were identified that will be explored throughout the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13 project and in Work Package 4 work took place with all partners on developing a SWOT analysis. The project has been using a web conferencing tool for communication between work package leaders. Considerable work has been undertaken with the projects publicity and communication activities. A general communication plan, partner communication plans, a website, press packs and newsletters have all been produced. The project had its kick off meeting on the 3rd and 4th December 2009 in Aberdeen. At the event all of the partners discussed the future shaping of the project.

WfG (January 2009 – December 2011) Waterways for Growth: Sustainable development of inland waterways in the North Sea Region – Report No. 2 In the period from October 2009 to March 2010 pilot actions were commenced in relation to business development & entrepreneurship, waterside regeneration and the sustainable management & development of the waterway resource. Actions so far started relate to: • Business networking & clustering, together with business support activity; • Development of new water tourism offers and products; • Marketing & promotion of water tourism opportunities; • Master planning of waterside regeneration and new waterway opportunities; • Sustainable management & development of waterway destinations; • Retention and development of freight opportunities on small dimension inland waterways. The structure of the Framework for the Sustainable Development of Inland Waterways was agreed, which was developed in parallel to the revision of the Government policy for inland waterways in England & Wales (Waterways for Tomorrow). The Waterways for Growth website – www.waterwaysforgrowth.eu – has now gone live. As well as providing an outline of the project and its aims and objectives, the website is also promoting forthcoming events and news items from partners.

MP4 (September 2008 – September 2012) Making Places Profitable – Public and Private open spaces – Report No. 3 A main deliverable regarding the transnational assessment of practice, the scoping report, has been finalized in the past implementation period. Within the work package on planning for place- keeping, activities are progressing with regards to peer reviews, model agreements and the report on ‘Exposition of place keeping in master planning’. Activities on the pilot projects are underway: a framework for critical reporting was prepared and transnational participation has taken place through the first Joint Planning Group meeting in Bruges in December 2010. The meeting involved the partnership regarding the Flemish pilot project, giving partners the opportunity to make suggestions regarding further planning and engaging them through a participative approach. A monitoring and evaluation strategy was agreed on and an action plan for the implementation of the communication plan is under development. In addition, training activities have taken place and another training event is planned for staff and exchange activities including officers outside the partnership.

Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 13

4.3 Promoting energy efficiency in settlements

BwC (August 2008 – October 2011) Build with CaRE – Mainstreaming Energy efficiency in the built environment – Report No. 3 The overall objective of all work executed within Build with CaRe is to lower the energy consumption in the building sector. The demonstration projects in East Flanders and Aberdeen are good examples, showing that it is possible to combine nice architecture, functionality and energy efficiency. In addition, a regional example on policy is Pronincie Grooningen that has contributed to the national debate by piloting a project in the Northern Netherlands with stricter energy demands in new buildings than national regulation states. Regional Vastra Gotaland is active in the dialogue with national authorities on national policies and standards. WP3 leader Aberdeen City Council has together with Build with CaRe partners developed a policy paper titled “The challenge of mainstreaming energy efficient buildings in the North Sea Region and the significance of existing building stock”. In March 2010 this paper was presented to the North Sea Commission’s Sustainable Development Thematic Group who voted to support it. The paper will now be presented to the North Sea Commission’s Executive Committee in June for adoption. If adopted, it will then be forwarded to the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR) for their support.

ANSWER (September 2008 – August 2011) A North Sea Way – Report No. 3 ANSWER is implementing linked and innovative solutions to help businesses and communities move towards sustainability. Highlights of the past period include the Carbon Charter and Climate Idols project, which is an innovative pilot project which aims to promote new, green products and services. The Charter is targeted at SMEs to gain a charter mark to show their commitment to and actual action on reducing their carbon footprint. Partners are collaborating to learn from each others’ experiences, and looking ahead on how to maximise the impact of our conclusions for other policy makers in the region and beyond. First results of school pilots suggest the schools achieved a 7% and 34% (based on space heating data) reduction in electric consumption, respectively. ANSWER attended the Open Days in Brussels October 5-8 2009 and was invited as one of very few projects to present in the Registration tent. Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

Project Activities Report No. 2 – September 2010 Achievements and Implementation Progress This report is based on the September 2010 project activity reports.

1 SELECTED PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS 2 Policy Impact Achievements 2

Long Term Impact Achievements 6

Transnationality Achievements 6

Innovation Achievements 7

Communications Achievements 11

2 IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS PER PROJECT 14 Priority 1 – Building on our Capacity for Innovation 14

Priority 2 – The Sustainable Management of our Environment 20

Priority 3 – Improving the Accessibility of Places in the NSR 28

Priority 4 – Promoting Sustainable and Competitive Communities 31

1 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

1 SELECTED PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS

Policy Impact Achievements BwC (August 2008 – October 2011) Build with CaRE The Build with CaRe policy paper was presented to the North Sea Commission’s Executive Committee at their Annual Meeting in Stavanger in June. It was adopted and will now be presented to the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR) in early October for their support. The paper focuses on the recently adopted Recast EPBD (European Performance of Building Directive) and points out the missed opportunity concerning refurbishment, the greatest challenge to reach to European climate objectives. The policy statement was also used in a revised version to answer the EU consultation on the Energy Strategy 2020. It has also provided input to the Build with CaRe communication work and it has served as a base for several consultations on national level.

DC Noise (June 2008 – June 2011) First results available in Twente (regarding housing), Groningen (Action plan on demographic change), Zeeland (through the path ahead) have been disseminated at national level in The Netherlands . Due to its success in the province of West-Flanders, the age scan has been identified by the Flemish Government and several transnational projects. The Flemish Government has shown a genuine interest for promoting and extending its use. For example, They are currently considering further development and implementation on a large scale within Flanders of the age scan tool as an online web application.

Smart Cities (September 2008 – August 2011 At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö (Sweden), EU ministers outlined a joint vision and policy priorities for e-government and how this should be delivered: the declaration repeats some of the goals of the Smart Cities project, such as empowering businesses and citizens through e-gov services. By providing tools and research on customer driven services, the Smart Cities project provides practical and detailed tools that support the Malmö 2015 agenda. Our customer profiling guide, the EU service list, the customer contact centre work and work on developing web portals all help to implement these objectives. The Citadel Statement gives a practical response to the questions raised in the Malmö statement. While there are many great visions for eGovernment, many requirements, and many manuals for on-the-ground implementation, in reality much of this is not having a

2 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

significant impact on local and municipal e-government and on communities. The Citadel statement builds on lessons Smart City has learned and will thus be a practical contribution that bridges the gap between the Malmö vision and realities that face cities and communities.

MARE (January 2009 – December 2011) MARE activities and insights contributed to the development of the Dutch Deltaprogramme (especially on the generic programmes Flood Safety and Urban Development, and the regional programme Rijnmond-Drechtsteden), in which policies and plans are developed to keep the Netherlands free from flooding, now and in future (2050, 2100). Through its active participation in the UK Local Government Council, the LAA contributes to Flood Regulations and new Floods and Water Act 2010 implementation regulations and the need to prepare Preliminary Flood Risk assessment (PFRA) and the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) role.

NS FRITS (January 2009 – December 2011) The PUAC beneficiary met with UK Deputy Prime Minister in August 2010 and during the meeting took the opportunity to promote NS FRITS. In addition, PUAC met with a representative from the Freight and Logistics Division of the (UK government - Department of Transport) to promote NS FRITS and investigate the project can support national policy and legislation. AVCIS continue to brief the Home Office in the UK on NS FRITS. Both PUAC and AVCIS regularly attend TruckPol (UK National Crime Intelligence Service for freight crime) meetings to raise awareness of NS FRITS to TruckPol members.

SKINT (October 2008 – October 2012) In relation to the finalisation of the national guidance Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) for Roads, SKINT partner Abertay is involved with establishing policies for the adoption of ‘legacy’ SUDS by the national water company (Scottish Water); the output of this project will be a national process governing how SUDS implemented prior to 2007 will be adopted.

AQUARIUS (January 2009 – December 2011 Experience within Aquarius has also been a significant influence in shaping the new research programme of the Scottish Government for 2011-16 ensuring the greater relevance of research programmes to addressing issues of sustainable management of land and water resources under climate change.

Project Activities Implementation Report No. 2 – September 2010 3 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

CARE-North (August 2009 – August 2012) The project’s activities were included and discussed in a report written by ICLEI (Local Government for Sustainability) on the transport sector’s trends and policies in Europe, which is to serve as a guideline to the planning and implementation of sustainable urban mobility plans for cities of neighbouring EU countries Ukraine (Sevastopol) and Moldova (Chisinau).

CCC (September 2009 – August 2012) During this period one project partner has been the lead partner of a policy grouping with the aim to feed in policy suggestion on how to cross-fertilize artistic competence with the needs of the industry and working-life. This policy grouping is supported by the European Commission’s Culture Program and has been active since 2009. The aim is to provide input to the white book on culture to stimulate cooperation between SME’s in the cultural sector and working life/businesses.

NorthSea – SEP (September 2009 – August 2012) The project has successfully contributed to a number of policy impact achievements on national and regional level during the September 2010 reporting round. In Scotland, Aberdeen City Council has given input into several UK Government consultations, namely the Renewable Heat Incentive Consultation and the Consultation on Allowing Local Authorities to sell electricity. The positive outcomes of both consultations will facilitate Aberdeen City in becoming a low carbon City. In Belgium, contacts to regional stakeholders, such as the regional pact on socio- economic development (streekpact) of the regional socio-economic committee (RESOC), ensured their involvement in the development of a regional energy plan for the Kortrijk region. Furthermore, a core group consisting of several regional partners was founded. This group is responsible for the follow up of the development of the regional energy strategy during monthly meetings. North Sea-SEP has been discussed with, presented or introduced on different political levels: the Flemish Enterprise Agency, province of West Flanders, the Swedish National Energy Agency, local authorities and municipalities in all regions, County Administrative Boards during the September 2010 reporting round.

Project Activities Implementation Report No. 2 – September 2010 4 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

SURF (September 2009 – August 2012) Saxion has signed a Knowledge Agreement on urban fringes with the Dutch Ministry of the Housing, Environmental Planning and Environment as part of their program aiming at spatial quality (‘Mooi Nederland’).

Enschede have been influencing Dutch national policy on urban fringes. A delegation from the landscape team of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment joinedan excursion to Enschede and Hengelo on 23 September 2010.

The Aberdeen project will assist the Forestry Commission Scotland in meeting their urban woodlands programmes and the Scottish Environment Agency in meeting their water quality objectives.

C2CI (Ext) (January 2009 – December 2012)

The Cargo bike has been awarded by national innovation programmes and this showcase will continue. The Shetland island Project activities have added to the 20% target by 2020 set out in the new EU Directive on Renewable Energy and also to the Scottish targets of 50% of gross electricity consumption coming from renewable sources by 2020 and 11% target of heat demand to be met from renewable sources by 2020. Activities have also contributed to the Local Strategy and Action Plan for Renewable Energy Development in Shetlands.

Dryport (June 2008 – July 2012) The joint Dryport partnership agreed upon a statement towards the European Commission with regard to the TEN-T revision as a follow-up of an earlier response on the new white book for transport. The core comment in this reaction was that Dyports will be mentioned as important in the proposed core hubs thinking. TEN-T must not only connect major European areas but shall also deal with regional development.

NMU (Ext) (January 2008 – June 2012) NMU formulated a response (“Enhancing the innovation capacity of the European transport industry”) as input to the European Commissions communication on “A sustainable future for transport: Towards an integrated, technology-led and user friendly system”. Through this, NMU contributed to the update of the White Paper of the European Commission issued in 2001 setting an agenda for the future European transport policy.

Project Activities Implementation Report No. 2 – September 2010 5 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

Long Term Impact Achievements

ERIP (June 2008 – June 2011) As a result of ERIP activities, Newcastle and Groningen Universities are collaborating on a joint postgraduate programme in Operations Management and Logistics.

MP4 (September 2008 – September 2012 MP4 is transferring transnational methods to other areas of the North Sea Region: An improvement project in Aarhus, Denmark was set up as a lab case of innovation and demonstration. Selected model agreements and planning models developed by MP4 will be adopted for planning and implementation. Aarhus is participating voluntarily, without financial support from MP4 or other EU programmes.

WfG (Ext) (January 2009 – December 2011)

Waterways for Growths has established links with the Interreg IVC Waterways Forward (WF) project: A number of WfG partners are participating in the project, which will allow some of the lessons learnt and ideas developed through WfG to be passed to a wider audience throughout Europe. WF involves 17 partners from 11 EU countries plus Norway and Serbia.

Experiences and work developed through WfG is providing input to work into concepts and models for the future organisation, staffing and financial management for improving water tourism in Germany. This project has been commissioned by the German Ministry of Transport (BMVBS).

Transnationality Achievements

Smart Cities (September 2008 – August 2011) The customer profiling methodology is the result of transnational cooperation between academics and government partners. Local work led to the development of a transnational methodology which was tested after the November 2009 workshop. This methodology results in a publication and a conference. The draft European Services List is also the result of transnational cooperation between academics and government partners linked with national or regional governments.

The project has developed and is continuously using effective tools to ensure transnational cooperation, including monthly meetings, regular reporting to project manager for him to

Project Activities Implementation Report No. 2 – September 2010 6 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

identify areas for cooperation, integrating academic work, etc. The stimulation of bilateral work between the project meetings has led to better cooperation and trust between the partners, resulting in better transnational outputs. For example, the work done on i-points in Bremerhaven will be translated into the Kortrijk situation.

CCC (September 2009 – August 2012) Transnationality became visible with regard to the concept development and the implementation of the BEST COLLABORATION AWARD - partners jointly develop the concept, a transnational jury was established, project partners contributed to the dissemination of the award and its procedure and supported local or regional initiatives to ensure their participation. Furthermore collaborations of participants from different countries (e.g. Germany/Netherlands) covering partnerships from creative and traditional industries were awarded.

LNS (March 2009 – September 2012) Joint working was evident through beneficiaries who have particular technical knowledge providing direct support to operational beneficiaries in developing methodologies and techniques for filling critical knowledge gaps. This approach has led to the sharing of transnational expertise in solving migratory fish problems. In particular, we have seen expertise travel from the UK to see problems in the Netherlands, and the one partner states that with no specialist knowledge on pumping stations and tide flaps in the UK, it was critical to success to be able to draw this expertise from the Netherlands and Belgium.

Innovation Achievements ANSWER (September 2008 – August 2011) The Energy Business Clubs continue to promote innovation and energy savings amongst SMEs through. All actions are part of a process towards creating "industrial symbiosis". Companies and entrepreneurs are incentive to work together, beyond cooperation on core-business related topics. The Energy Clubs aim at introducing the BAT (Best Available Techniques), not for single businesses, but for clusters of businesses. This cooperation is at a higher level than the actions that are taken individually, and is as such innovative for the current socio-economic climate the North Sea Region.

CLIWAT (September 2008 – September 2011) The geological modelling of the subsurface and integrated hydrological modelling (coupled groundwater and surface water modelling) and the presentation of results is under continuous and fast development. The CLIWAT project makes a significant contribution in this process and development e.g. by developing perhaps the first transnational coupled

Project Activities Implementation Report No. 2 – September 2010 7 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 14

groundwater and surface water model for simulation of climate change impact on the hydrological cycle, globally.

NSSP (October 2008 – September 2011) The NSSP Visual Effects Research Lab (VERL) was awarded a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Award for a project to work on a Joint Venture with a Scottish SME. The VERL project team will produce a stereoscopic 3Dfilm of a surgical procedure. The findings of the project will form the basis of a proof of concept for a 3D film production unit, a proven specification for Standard or Hi Definition 3D production, a tested workflow process and a 15-minute edited three-dimensional video. It is anticipated that the process to be used will be one which could be adopted by the stakeholders and may be commercialised.

Smart Cities (September 2008 – August 2011 Smart Cities is creating a transnational European service list based on the UK ESD model by involving specialised companies, national authorities and academic partners. The service list delivers an expression of the semantics of local government in a model that is both human and machine readable in accordance with W3C standards for the semantic web. The draft European Services List has the potential to set a new standard in service delivery of local authorities in Europe.

The customer profiling guide developed by Smart Cities (now online at www.smartcities.info) is the first EU transnational publication on this topic for use by local government. The Customer Insight guide is a brand new guide, addressing the need of a global guide that helps local authorities to work customer driven.

SAWA (January 2008 – December 2011) The SAWA project UK2 is supporting innovation within the North Sea Region due to the cutting edge application of geo-statistical techniques and neural network modelling tools to sustainable flood risk management planning. The detailed and unique dataset developed so far as part of the project is allowing detailed spatial analysis of conventional hard variables such as dam length and height and holistic variables such as how engineered a structure appears.

MARE (January 2009 – December 2011) The Learning Action Alliances (LAAs) are already functioning as catalyst for innovative policy development. MARE Dordrecht has been selected as a pilot project to test the feasibility of integrated FRM (MultiLevelSafety), combining preventive measures to reduce

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chance with spatial measures and communication measures to reduce risk as a national level pilot project. Until now, national level policy has been based on prevention only, with the other measures independently carried out by lower level government. In addition, the project has also contributed to innovation in Flood Risk Management: The Dutch LAA, involving local, regional and national level authorities, has agreed to use the city of Dordrecht pilot site as a test case for a new approach to Flood Risk Management: Long-term adaptive FRM. It will, in short, develop a decision support model that allows urban developers to optimise investments in drainage to meet changes in climate change. Application of Adaptation Tipping Point method with respect to sewer and surface water systems. State-of-the-art related to climate proofing of flooding systems is executed. This promises pathways for scientific innovation.

ClimaFruit (October 2009 – September 2013) All ClimaFruit activities are focused on delivering innovation through introducing novel knowledge and technologies to the berry fruit industry. Activities have included finding solutions to the impact of climate on productivity and quality, organic and sustainable production solutions on use of water, nutrients, fertilizers and novel alternative approaches as well as evaluation of new technologies focused on productivity and disease management. Outcomes from these activities have been communicated to industry partners, to transfer and promote the new knowledge generated through this project to ensure its implementation.

CCC (September 2009 – August 2012) The project has promoted innovation by promoting the creative industries as catalyst of economic development. For example, a check on innovation and creativity was carried out among traditional companies; the companies received feedback on the results and participated at a workshop in order to discuss them and get additional advice. Also, the Design factory project is the first artistic-economic project in Flanders. Collaborations between economy/arts and the creative sector are innovative in this context. The launch of the 'Creative boost' pilot course brought many innovative ideas and approaches to the delivery and development of enterprise and entrepreneurship skills to creative industry professionals and will be freely available as part of the project deliverables.

LNS (March 2009 – September 2012) Innovation that took place during the last reporting round included new approaches to dealing with pumping stations, tackling the acidification of waters as well as for the management of tidal barriers to allow for fish migration. Further, a European-wide Sustainable Eel Group was developed including government, industry and conservation sectors. Other innovative actions included the use of North Sea navigation bouys to provide an inexpensive network of placements for acoustic receivers for fish tracking as

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well as understanding the migratory requirements of River Lamprey (protected under the EU Habitats Directive).

NorthSea – SEP (September 2009 – August 2012)

In the Netherlands the preparation of the pilot for the evaluation of aerial pictures in Tynaarlo for the implementation of solar power plants have shown, that this technology has not been used before. Both, the municipality of Tynaarlo as well as the private organisation, which delivers the aerial pictures are highly interested to learn more about the innovative technology developed at the Jade Hochschule and the possibilities of using this technology in the Netherlands in the future.

Ballast Water Opportunity (January 2009 – December 2012) One of the major achievements was the development of an improved method of determining viable and non-viable bacteria using a two colour staining method. It is foreseen that the detailed discussions on detection technologies and sample processing approaches with other experts (inside and outside the project) will further lead to improvements of the sample handling. The use of the knowledge exchange centre and pilot test bed provide a strong impulse on innovation (sea activity report) and development of new treatment technologies.

In addition, collaboration between Zebra, NIOZ and other smaller and bigger companies with detailed knowledge of water and sea water treatment will eventually lead to innovative projects in the fields and markets of water hygiene, food hygiene and human and animal care in Europe. The introduction of innovative detection tool “ATP measurement of bacterial growth” into the ballast water project, if successful, could prove to be a very powerful and effective detection method. The idea is to develop a general method which can be used to monitor the disinfection procedures of all the different BWT systems on all ships and ports. ATP detection could be an ideal quick technique for both ships and port control to evaluate the performance of the ballast water treatment system and indicate whether further inspection is required. That would provide innovation in technology and policy. The development of Biomagnetic enrichments methods for human pathogen from sea water, in combination with Real time DNA detection or Lab-on-a-chip methods is new to the project. The goal is to provide robust detection tools for the detection of low amounts of many human pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, in sea/ballast water. The combination of DNA methods and lab-on-a-chip analysis using microfluidics and laser optics is very innovative.

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BLAST (October 2009 – September 2012) Lack of reliable maritime information will always be a risk in respect to the maritime traffic navigation and monitoring. A harmonised ENC (Electronical Nautical Chart) system and efficient traffic monitoring system are of utmost importance to keep a high level of security for regional maritime traffic. Integration and distribution of maritime data is therefore important. The ENC harmonization tool is the result of an innovative process providing a functionality not currently available elsewhere in other tool sets in use.

C2CI (Ext) (January 2009 – December 2012)

The collaboration with Jets / C2CI partners on sanitary water and heating solutions in buildings has been innovative (see the REC prize awarded on October 21, 2010 by the Norwegian ‘Sanitary Plumbing and Heating Industry Association’). However, also promotion of IMTA in Norway has led to innovative projects, such as a pilot study testing Fish-seaweed aquaculture at Solund municipality in Western Norway.

Communications Achievements CLIWAT (September 2008 – September 2011)

The CLIWAT project was one of the key note speakers at the Nordic Water 2010 in Riga with more than 120 participants August 9-11th 2010. Including an article in the conference preceedings. (http://www.nordicwater-2010.com/venue/).

In addition, the CLIWAT video has been exposed through YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAdzWnZ-e0

enerCoast (June 2008 – May 2012) The project was featured on the North German TV channel NDR on September 15. The project’s promotion of coastal bioenergy initiatives was highlighted together with the enercoast partner meeting in Wilhelmshaven on September 13-14. The 3 minute clip can be viewed at http://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/hallo_niedersachsen/media/ndsmag6837.html.

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POWER Cluster (July 2008 – June 2011) The Midterm conference was organised alongside the All-Energy 2010 Exhibition (18-20 May 2010), Aberdeen which gathered more than 7,000 people. A video of the Midterm conference is available on the POWER cluster website (http://www.power- cluster.net/AboutPOWERcluster/tabid/587/Default.aspx). As last year, the Boat exhibition was also very successful with 21,814 visitors during summer 2010, as in 2009 (22,000 visitors).

DiPol (January 2009 – December 2011)

Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg (HAW) communicated DiPols aims and objectives to the European Sediment Network SedNet which acts as a disseminator. The Steering group of SedNet consists of representatives from harbour port authorities, national governmental institutes and universities from 6 European Countries. Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg (HAW) handed in an abstract for a presentation on DiPol-results for the next SedNet conference in April in Venice.

BioCHAR (October 2009 – October 2013) The project has successfully continued its implementation on publicity and communciations issues since the project's presentation at the Agriculture and Rural Development day, which was held by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) on 12 December 2009 in relation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP15 in Copenhagen. The video produced for the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen was broadcasted by National Geographic television in the Netherlands in May and June 2010.

CARE-North (August 2009 – August 2012)

The project was showcased in the ICLE (Local Government for Sustainability)I co- organised 6th European Conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns in Dunkerque, France between 19-21 May 2010. More than 1800 persons participated in this international conference: Europe’s largest local sustainability event. The Lead Partner had the opportunity to present the project in a parallel session, and had an interactive discussion with the audience and other presenters.

A project was represented at the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. The possibility was used as a promotion event in Bremen for the car-sharing theme as a part of the CARE-North activities. Two workshops were held during the EXPO2010 in Shanghai i.e. “Carbon responsible transport strategies” organized in May 2010.

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C2CI (Ext) (January 2009 – December 2012)

The C2C philosophy & cradle to cradle islands project was broadcasted on the ARD 14 August 2010, 16.30 – 17.30, Europa Magazine.

Other Achievements StratMoS (Ext) (April 2009 – March 2011) The project idea called "Logistics Hubs in the High North" has been pursued. There have been meetings both in Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Nenets and Kirkenes to discuss the project idea. The cooperation with the "Partnership for Northern Sea Route" has been used for the promotion of the project idea. An important part of this initiative is that it is pursuing the possibility of logistics hubs in the High North to benefit from the newly established “Partnership for Transport and Logistics” within the “Northern Dimension” which is a cooperation between EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland. In discussions with the Ministry of Transport in Russia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway, the project idea may become a pilot project within the Northern Dimension.

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2 IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS PER PROJECT

This chapter provides the status of each project running under the Programme that has reported in September 2010, as well as the progress made within the last reporting period. The projects are sorted according to the four programme priorities.

Priority 1 – Building on our Capacity for Innovation

Overall Implementation Status Many of the 12 projects that reported in the September 2010 round under Priority 1 are more than midway through implementation and therefore in a stage of active implementation. Methods that were developed jointly are now being applied across the partner regions and regional testing has led to first results on the transnational level. In terms of the overarching aim, building capacity for innovation, two elements have become central. Firstly, the involvement of private partners and industry representatives has dominated much of the activities in this priority in terms of transferring results and promoting innovation. For instance, Smart Cities has been invited by the Flemish government in participating in the organisation and planning of the pre-conference event that launches the conference 'Lift off to Open Government' organised by the Belgian government as part of their EU presidency. Secondly, projects are now deploying educational and training courses for their specific target groups, which have been developed by the partnerships in previous reporting rounds. This way, long term structures for training and development are being introduced that are able make a change regarding the region’s capacity for innovation. For instance, within the ERIP project, the project partners Newcastle University and Groningen University are collaborating on a joint postgraduate programme in Operations Management and Logistics.

The summarised status on activities for each project under Priority 1 can be found in the following.

1.1 Building the innovation capacity of business

ERIP (June 2008 – June 2011) European Regions for Innovation – Report No. 4

ERIP continued to introduce the Lean Change Methodology to SMEs. For example, the project is testing a new way of teaching lean production to SMEs, which had a significant impact on the SME involved in the test. It will contribute to innovation in processes and organization within that SME, and will spread to have impact on many more SMEs as the pilot project is underway.

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Through seminars, the project has disseminated information and knowledge on lean and other innovative practices to a broad audience of SMEs. Through other ongoing R&D initiatives, information from ERIP has been used to inspire manufacturing companies' innovative practices both in planning and implementation of R&D activities.

In addition, the project partners Newcastle University and Groningen University are collaborating on a joint postgraduate programme in Operations Management and Logistics.

NMU (Ext) (January 2008 – June 2012) Northern Maritime University – Report No. 5 Project Representatives represented the NMU network and gave a presentation on the project activities at the 2010 Annual Educators’ Conference on Logistics Education in Changsha, China, from 26/07/2010 to 04/08/2010 with over 300 hundred delegates from China. The NMU network is now looking into in depth cooperation with the Business School of Beijing Technology and Business University of China (BTBU).

The project formulated a response “Enhancing the innovation capacity of the European transport industry” as input to the European Commissions communication on “A sustainable future for transport: Towards an integrated, technology-led and user friendly system". In addition, the project is working towards establishing a European Area of Research and Innovation for the maritime industry. The projects stakeholder group continues to grow. Two new stakeholders have now been integrated: Beluga Shipping Company and Zeller Associates, Germany. The stakeholder group now contains 23 members.

1.2 Building the transnational dimension of clusters and research and innovation networks

NSSP (October 2008 – September 2011) North Sea Screen Partnership – Report No. 3 To promote business development for the NSR film, partners have engaged with the industry in the delivery of master-classes, workshops and seminars. These included media network events focusing on new business models, social media networks, media revenue models and gaming.

A Co-Production Conference was held that provided specific opportunities to meet and identify suitable partners within the NSR: The event brought together authors, producers, film commissions, broadcasters, film-makers and international funders. More than 70 filmmakers responded to the invitation to present NSR-based projects.

The NSSP Visual Effects Research Lab (VERL) is now fully operational and was awarded a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Award to work on a joint venture with a Scottish SME. The VERL project team will produce a stereoscopic 3Dfilm of a surgical procedure. It is anticipated that the process will be adopted by the stakeholders and may be commercialised.

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E-CLIC (September 2008 – April 2011) European Collaborative Innovation Centres for Broadband Media Services – Report No. 4 The E-CLIC Mid-term Conference was held in June 2010 in Hanover, in connection to the annual congress of the partner initiative D21, a national initiative for digital media and society. All E-CLIC centres were represented, together with some 300 visitors from enterprises, universities and ministries in Germany. E-CLIC Borås has developed a new infrastructure for citizen centred e-services "e-me". The results are tested in collaboration with E-CLIC Värmland and ISSI, as a Living Lab for E-CLIC Borås. In addition, 14 case studies as well as a few prototypes and innovative productions have been completed in relation to service development, content production and broadband access. In addition, several new case studies started. A mid-term evaluation report for the E-CLIC project has been carried out and a draft report for an E- CLIC curriculum was developed. E-CLIC Groningen and E-CLIC Kortrijk organised official opening ceremonies of their centres. The date for the grand opening of the E-CLIC Living Lab in Hanover was set to 8 March 2011.

SmartCities (September 2008 – August 2011) Smart Cities – Report No. 4 During the past reporting period, the project has delivered a number of transnational outcomes. The Customer Insight methodology for customer and community profiling has been tested by local partners and a publication is being produced and released in October 2010 at the Smart Cities Customer Insight Conference in Cambridge. The wide range of work on Customer Contact Centres in the project is being brought together in a guide to developing and managing customer contact centres that will be useful for local authorities across the EU.

The first draft of a transnational EU service list has been prepared and tested. The Smart Cities academic network has described the knowledge gathered over the past two years in a continuous flow of research briefs and conference presentations.

The project results were presented at several international conferences and communicated to target groups. Smart Cities has been invited by the Flemish government in participating in the organisation and planning of the pre-conference event that launches the conference 'Lift off to Open Government' organised by the Belgian government as part of their EU presidency. Smart Cities is involved in the production and presentation of a policy statement on e-government for national and EU government, the Citadel statement.

ClimaFruit (October 2009 – September 2013) Future proofing the North Sea berry fruit industry in times of climate change – Report No. 2 Activities involved further development of the new transnational cultivar trial, with planning, distribution of plant material, agreement on sampling, and analysis protocols. In addition

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considerable national activities have been established to improve sustainability practises in growing berries (organic production, spray technologies, UV light technologies, optimisation of water and nutrients). Significant advances have been made in the study of the genetics of soft fruit human health beneficial components in both raspberry and blackcurrant. Health benefits of berry fruit have been identified in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. A series of new project activities focussed on adaptation to temperature has been established. A transnational review on the impact of climate change of soft fruit has been initiated. In addition, a considerable number of communication and promotional activities have taken place with public, industry, science and political sectors.

POYO (Ext) (January 2009 – January 2012) The Port is Yours – Report No. 3 Development has been made with the Centres of Excellence (CoE) to be established in the beneficiary countries. In the Netherlands the CoE is planned to be completed by February 2011. In the UK (Gateshead) the CoE is ready and operative and in Newcastle the CoE is very close to completion. The Belgian CoE is nearly ready with an official opening expected at the start of 2011. The virtual Hamburg CoE already exists.

Two exchanges of trainers initiatives have taken place: In October teachers and trainers from Newcastle College, Gateshead College and Syntra West travelled to Germany and the UK to follow specialist trainings in maintenance, such as welding techniques and electric auto hazards.

In Germany, the POYO beneficiaries attended a promotional exhibition at the town hall in Hamburg, which received about 10,000 visitors. In the Netherlands there has been contact with the Dutch Institute for Welding in order to develop certification in welding/adhesive processes.

POWER Cluster (July 2008 – June 2011) Developing the North Sea Offshore Wind Power Cluster – Report No. 4 Core activities for this reporting round included a strengthened stakeholder and business- to-business network. The 5th Transnational meeting took place in Kiel and Husum, Germany, 21-23 September 2010. This meeting was organised alongside the HUSUM Wind Energy conference, 21-25 September 2010). It resulted in an energy grid reinforcement across the NSR (which now has been completed).

A study looking at offshore transmission grid economics is underway and will be completed prior to 30 June 2011. Finally, continous implementation of the Master course for wind energy techniques attracted a large number of foreign students (30% of foreign students).

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IFP (June 2008 – June 2011) Innovative Foresight Planning for Business Development – Report No. 3 Both the advanced technologies and the energy cluster have carried out transnational foresight processes, which have given the participating businesses and regions common insight in future opportunities. B2B activities have been carried out in the food-, energy and advanced technologies clusters and led to exchange between the partners with regards to foresight planning. A foresight workshop on market opportunities in offshore wind sector connected to the All Energy trade fair and conference in Aberdeen gathered more than 100 participants from industry, academia and the public sector covering all IFP regions. Subsequent discussions in the energy group have resulted in an agreement to focus on Energy Storage. In the Advanced Technology cluster, the work on applying the Radar Group Model to cluster groups is carried out, and the model shows a clear potential as an innovative basis for foresight planning within technology-based clusters.

1.3 Building the society’s and the institutional capacity for innovation

SKINT (October 2008 – October 2012) North Sea Skills Integration and New Technologies – Report No. 2 SKINT has continued to work on their 3-in-1 plans that will be more easily accepted by project developers – combining spatial planning, water management and energy. In this context, a workshop on spatial planning, energy (sustainability) and water management "learning from abroad" took place involving spatial planners, sewer experts and experts on energy and sustainability. Municipalities participating in the workshop agreed to cooperate in solving their similar water management problems. The project partner Abertay has been one of the key partners to the development of the new SUDS for Roads guidance for Scotland. This guidance is cutting edge and aimed primarily at local authorities and the development industry. New case studies have been developed to demonstrate best practice within sustainable drainage design, implementation and aftercare. Development of the Water Town interactive learning model is being developed to illustrate a range of water related issues throughout Europe and incorporates two areas of innovation: the development of a user based interactive learning model and a best practice for urban water planning within the built environment.

CCC (September 2009 – August 2012) Creative City Challenge – Report No. 2 CCC continued to implement various project activities which aim to strengthen the creative industries in all partner regions. For example, the INNOWIZ platform is continually evolving as a free online platform where anybody can learn about creativity & design methodology

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and creativity tools. The platform helps making creativity tangible and accessible for companies and entrepreneurs. The launch of the 'Creative boost' pilot course brought many innovative ideas and approaches to the development of enterprise and entrepreneurship skills to creative industry professionals and will be freely available as part of the project deliverables. One example of fostering innovative and creative collaboration in a transnational way is the development of the BEST COLLABORATION AWARD. The project received 16 contributions on new and creative collaborations from six countries, of which five were selected by an international jury. The award ceremony took place in Kortrijk in October 2010 during the international conference "Fostering Creativity within Cities – playtime is over".

NORTHSEA SUPPLY (Ext) (October 2009 – September 2012) North Sea Supply Connect – Report No. 2 The project is now moving on from its start up phase with some preparation activities as well as activities in the varying work packages.

Beneficiaries have submitted information about clusters in their regions focusing on Maritime, Energy and Food and Health. The information was discussed at a work package meeting and will help in establishing the further strategy for the project as well as a clear orientation on the priority markets, in which the target supply markets for NSSC can be identified.

Work on developing the projects Political Advisory Board took place with each beneficiary actively trying to engage Government officials in the Board. In addition, a panel debate took place in Bremen, organised by the beneficiary BAW, which provided a transnational networking opportunity between representatives of the maritime sector, public authorities, project groups and institutions.

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Priority 2 – The Sustainable Management of our Environment

Overall Implementation Status For the September 2010 reporting round, most projects have now reported more than on one occasion. Most of the projects are well underway in terms of implementation activities. For example, the Ballast Water Opportunity project, a large number of ballast water exchange and the issuance of exemptions from ballast water treatment were carried out by a working group coordinated the Netherlands Ministry of Transport and Public Works. he pilot test bed for Ballast Water Treatment systems attracted regional and non North Sea companies and national authorities. Furthermore, the project biochar has opened the first biochar national competence centre in the Netherlands, which now makes it possible for interested farmers and other parties to see demonstration fields and gain insight into the production and usage of biochar.

A number of projects have contributed to European policies and created potential impacts on a long-term basis. For instance, the implementation process of the EC Flood Directive (FD) has been supported by SAWA, MARE and DiPol. A draft Memorandum of Understanding has been presented to the North Sea Commission and discussions on its implementation have been started. The Memorandum of Understanding will be based on the outcomes of the Climate Proof Areas pilots, including recommendations on climate adaptation, process evaluation as well as ecologic, economical and social aspects. In addition, MARE has established various links to policy development programmes, and has become a pilot in the areas of Flood Safety and New building & Redevelopment for the Dutch national “Delta Programme”. Links have also been made to the UK Floods and Water Act 2010.

The summarised status on activities for each of the projects can be found in the following.

2.1 Sustainable development of the coastal land and sea areas through integrated coastal zone management

BLAST (Ext) (October 2009 – September 2012) Bringing Land and Sea Together – Report No. 2 The project has focused on user need surveys, state-of-the-art verifications and writing specifications. The work provides a profound basis for the developments planned for the next year.

As a result of the work on harmonization of maritime information a software package – The Electronical Nautical Checker ‘ENC' has been made available for download after an extended testing period. The ENC harmonization tool is the result of an innovative process providing functions not currently available in any other tool. The first conference in the BLAST project took place from 15-17 September 2010 in Hirtshals, Denmark. Nearly 70 participants attended the conference, which focused on outlooks for the marine and coastal environments, navigation and safety at sea, and knowledge-based integrated

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coastal zone management. The last day of the conference included a visit to three of the project test sites in Hirtshals to illustrate some of the coastal tension due to climate change and erosion.

The project welcomed Delft University of Technology as a BLAST Partner in June, following an application for a project extension. Seven NSR countries are now represented with partners in the project consortium.

TIDE (January 2010 – December 2012) Tidal River Development – Report No. 2 Working groups have been set up for specific tasks, blue prints developed and where necessary approaches refined. The project has been carrying out these tasks using different transnational approaches, including a Transnational Working Group.

With regards blue prints the inter-estuarine comparison was split into the three given topics of a) hydrology, b) geomorphology and c) ecology. Coordinators prepared blue prints for each topic and discussed them in the related working groups together with historical change reports. A first blue print of the sand balance approach was also made. As part of the geo-morphological component, a proposal was made for a comparison of all four TIDE estuaries based on a simple analytical model approach.

Also, the project's four Regional Working Groups (one for each estuary region) have been set up. For example, in Humber: The group has been formed by members of the Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Studies, Associated British Ports (ABP) and the Humber Management Scheme's project officer (representing 30 relevant authorities). Other possible bodies will be consulted when required.

LNS (March 2009 – September 2012) Living North Sea – Report No. 3 Knowledge from around the partnership is being collated into online Geographic Information Systems, while research has been carried out to fill some apparent knowledge gaps: Some young sea trout have been tracked for nearly 400km down the UK North Sea coast, and salmon, extinct from the River Meuse in the Netherlands for over 100 years, have been tracked trying to migrate downstream, to identify the critical problems. The partners are working on a number of innovative solutions to fish migration barriers in transnational teams so that knowledge is shared across the region. The project activities included new approaches to dealing with pumping stations, tackling the acidification of waters as well as the management of tidal barriers to allow fish migration. The progress achieved resulted in national press attention in many countries that has far exceeded expectations. Main reasons for this are the current plight of the European eel, and the highly visual nature of the fish tracking work.

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SUSCOD (Ext) (September 2009 – December 2013) Sustainable Coastal Development in Practise – Report No. 2 This reporting round included the approval of the partnership extension in June 2010. The partnership is now fully in place with Essex County Council and Strömstad strengthening the SUSCOD forces. A European Tender was opened for work package 4: Analysing existing tools and defining use assistant and developing prototype activities. The work on the state of the art inventory has been drafted. A discussion on how to apply it on transnational level is foreseen to take place in the partner meeting in the Netherlands in November 2010. The work on concepts and strategies (work package 6: Mapping spatial restrictions study) is underway. A finalized study is expected in November 2010. Finally, the project website is under construction and is in the test phase. It will be launched before the end of 2010.

2.2 Developing preventive and responsive measures to address acute and chronic marine pollution

Ballast Water Opportunity (January 2009 – December 2012) North Sea Ballast Water Opportunity – Report No. 3 The project has been strengthening its transnational position, involving (inter)national authorities from the North Sea Region, France and Ireland. It also contributed to the work of IMO and EMSA. Several transnational workshops where organised to enhance the ratification and implementation of the IMO ballast water convention and the IMO approval of ballast water treatment systems. Ballast water exchange and the issuance of exemptions from ballast water treatment were carried out by a working group coordinated the Netherlands Ministry of Transport and Public Works. The group developed a report that will be made available after final consultations, proposing to focus on the identification of target species and to take into consideration the salinity of ports. Data on exchange zones has been provided by Brockmann Consult who developed a model to identify high risk areas combining remote sensing with other data. With the granted project extension the development and implementation of monitoring strategies and detection equipment is strengthened. Also, the pilot test bed for Ballast Water Treatment systems attracted regional and non North Sea companies and national authorities.

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2.3 Adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changing climate

CPA (July 2008 – December 2011) Climate Proof Areas – Report No. 4 A draft Memorandum of Understanding has been presented to the North Sea Commission and discussions on its implementation have been started. The Memorandum of Understanding will be based on the outcomes of the Climate Proof Areas pilots, including recommendations on climate adaptation, process evaluation as well as ecologic, economical and social aspects.

The adaptation toolbox, which is one of the main outcomes of the project, is currently undergoing a consultation process in order to finalise its content: It contains risk identification, risk assessment, potential solutions, valuing process, selection of potential measures and follow ups. The toolbox draws on experiences from different pilots and will be made available as a guidance for regional and local stakeholders to set climate proofing in motion.

BioCHAR (October 2009 – October 2013) Climate Changing Soils – Report No. 2 Core activities included the establishment of transnational working groups to discuss the issues around biochar feedstocks, production processes, life cycle assessments, field trails and regulations. Based on these discussions, beneficiaries are now in the phase of compiling and testing the biochar knowledge in small scale experiments in preparation for the field trials in 2011.

The project has opened the first biochar national competence centre in the Netherlands, which now makes it possible for interested farmers and other parties to see demonstration fields and gain insight into the production and usage of biochar.

Finally, the project has successfully continued its communication efforts since the project's presentation at the Agriculture and Rural Development day, which was held by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in December 2009 in relation to the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen. The video produced for COP15 was broadcasted by National Geographic television in the Netherlands in May and June 2010. MARE (January 2009 – December 2011) Managing Adaptive Responses to Change Flood Risk in the North Sea Region Report No. 3 The regional Learning and Action Alliances in Dordrecht, Sheffield/Rotherham, Hannover and Bergen have set up multidisciplinary work groups on various aspects of Flood Risk Management (FRM). Besides the 15 formal partners, more than 40 (mostly public) entities and 200 people are now structurally involved in the project. In close cooperation between

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academic entities and the five cities, a transnational Climate Proofing Framework has been defined that describes analysis tools and approaches for FRM with regards to national norms, extreme events under climate change and socio-economic needs.

Key events included a transnational design review session in Bergen, Norway, where new development and redevelopment projects were reviewed in the light of the principles of the framework. The session helped to refine practices, but also resulted in new ideas for concepts and solutions for FRM in Bergen. MARE has established various links to policy development programmes, and has become a pilot in the areas of Flood Safety and New building & Redevelopment for the Dutch national “Delta Programme”. Links have also been made to the UK Floods and Water Act 2010.

Furthermore, the project website www.mare-project.eu has been re-launched.

CLIWAT (September 2008 – September 2011) Adaptive and sustainable water management and protection of society and nature in an extreme climate – Report No. 4 Core activities for this reporting round included the application of groundwater and integrated hydrological models for assessment of the hydrological impacts of different climate scenarios with focus on water table fluctuations, river discharge, delineation of flood risk areas and saltwater intrusion. The hydrological scenario simulations (still subject for continuous development) are based on output from existing climate models and geological and geophysical measurements and modelling of the subsurface partly conducted in the project pilots. Finally, the project continues to provide the data for development of adaptive measures and new standards for e.g. engineering of drainage and sewer systems, dikes, roads and buildings, and for quantitative and chemical status assessments of groundwater and the aquatic environment according to EU directives.

SAWA (June 2008 – December 2011) Strategic Alliance for Integrated Water Management Actions – Report No. 4 The transnational education activities have started with a workshop in Gothenburg in March 2010. A joint master course will be hosted by Karlstad University in spring 2011. A website for the sustainable education centre (SEC) was launched and an external network for SEC as been established. The network for a more effective flood risk management consists of 15 members, including municipalities, regions, national authorities, consultants and the insurance sector. Extensive research has been carried out in order to develop a new decision support system outline for water bodies including sustainable flood retention basins (SFRB) and other structural adaptive measures. It shall replace the current decision support system, which is based on a collection of various tools based on different methodologies. The SAWA project UK2 is applying cutting edge geo-statistical techniques and neural network modelling tools for sustainable flood risk management planning. The dataset

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developed so far allows a detailed spatial analysis of conventional hard variables such as dam length and height and holistic variables such as how engineered a structure appears.

AQUARIUS (January 2009 – December 2011) The Farmer as Water Manager under Changing Climatic Conditions – Report No. 3 The project has initiated various technical methods on how to handle challenges of a new climate situation and to see what kind of tools are being used in the different participating countries. In close connection to the work concerning the technical methods, a number of demonstration and implementation activities have been going on in the pilots during this reporting period: In Drenthe a questionnaire has been distributed to farmers about their attitude towards water and which methods they prefer to implement. In parallel to the questionnaire, testing of sensor technology as new demonstrations of new methods and techniques have been taking place. Moisture sensors, which enable farmers to achieve efficient water use on their land have also been demonstrated.

There has been continuous focus on dissemination in this reporting period. A number of meetings for different stakeholders and stakeholder groups have taken place, and examples of different key methods were presented to a larger audience, for instance examples and ideas for establishing grazing guilds, new technologies for irrigation and rain harvesting.

DiPol (January 2009 – December 2011) Impact of Climate Change on the quality of urban and coastal waters – Report No. 3 Core activities included the further implementation of the web based knowledge platform, which will be integrated into the demonstration and evaluation tool SIMACLIM. The web based knowledge platform now contains the first results from the project's case studies. The case studies have covered different extents of continental impacts of climate change, such as increase of rainfall, rising groundwater level, increased frequency of high and low river discharge and coastal issues (sea level increase, storm surges). DELTARES is now facilitating the use of the Open Earth (www.openearth.eu) tool, in which data can be stored and presented using Google Earth. A documentary film made by schoolchildren is also under development and will be finalised in 2011.

A concept for SIMACLIM has been initiated and further developed during this reporting round. The evaluation and communication tool illustrates the impacts of climate changes on water quality and will help regional and national decision makers to adapt their management to the changing climate. The concept is built upon the sensitivity analyses and the regional risk ranking model (4RM). The first outcomes were displayed at the SIMACLIM workshop in Oslo.

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2.4 Promoting environmentally responsible energy production practices

enerCoast (June 2008 – May 2012) BlueGreen Coastal Energy Community – Report No. 4 The activities in work package 3 “Supply Chain Mobilisation” have been completed. They included key strategic elements of the project: surveys, biomass inventories and reports, scientific assessments and feasibility studies, identification of gaps in the individual supply chains, field tests, fine-tuning of regional business models, contractual arrangements, extensive stakeholder consultations and political processing of supply chain proposals.

These efforts have served to manage the transition from the earlier supply chain analyses (WP 2) to defined regional business plans that will be the focus of work package 4 “Pilot Optimization Projects”. A full account of the supply chain mobilisation activities will be published shortly in the enerCOAST “Mobilisation Report”.

C2CI (Ext) (January 2009 – December 2012) Cradle to Cradle Islands – Report No. 3 The concept of the Eternal Holiday House (EHH) for Ameland has been developed. In this house de-central & new water systems are installed; a vacuum system, grinder and a vacuum toilet, as well as a recycling shower. The TU Delft master study ‘Renovation Strategy for Energy Optimization’ of holiday houses inspired by the Cradle2Cradle theory has been finalised, specifying the characteristics of eco-efficient holiday houses.

An award-winning cargo bike has been developed and will continue to be showcased. A collaboration on sanitary water and heating solutions in buildings was awarded the Runde Environmental Centre (REC) prize by the Norwegian ‘Sanitary Plumbing and Heating Industry Association’. The promotion of Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture in Marine Water (IMTA) in Norway has led to innovative projects, such as a pilot study testing fish- seaweed aquaculture in Western Norway.

The Shetland Island project activities have added to the 20% target by 2020 set out in the new EU Directive on Renewable Energy and also to the Scottish targets of 50% of gross electricity consumption coming from renewable sources by 2020 and the 11% target of heat demand to be met from renewable sources by 2020. Activities have also contributed to the Local Strategy and Action Plan for Renewable Energy Development in Shetlands. Regional activities for Roosevelt Island (NY, United States) and the Oulu area (Finland) have been prepared, setting up a regional network and starting up action plans.

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NorthSea – SEP (September 2009 – August 2012) North Sea Sustainable Energy Planning – Report No. 2 First outputs of activities have been produced during the second reporting period, e.g the baseline papers on the regional energy-related status quo for some of the partner regions.

In addition, the project has successfully contributed to policy achievements on national level. For instance, in Scotland, Aberdeen City Council has given input into several UK Government consultations, namely the Renewable Heat Incentive Consultation and the Consultation on Allowing Local Authorities to sell electricity. The positive outcomes of both consultations will facilitate Aberdeen City in becoming a low carbon city.

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Priority 3 – Improving the Accessibility of Places in the NSR

Overall Implementation Status Overall, project activities are running in various stages in this priority. For the project Stratmos, reporting for the fifth time, results are now forthcoming as an outcome of project activity. For example, creating new networks and strategic logistical links are well underway. An important part of the initiative is that it is pursues the possibility of logistics hubs in the High North to benefit from the newly established “Partnership for Transport and Logistics” within the “Northern Dimension” which is a cooperation between EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland. In discussions with the Ministry of Transport in Russia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway, the project idea may become a pilot project within the Northern Dimension Programme. Some good examples of transnational cooperation in an international context can be seen in practice. For example, the Care-North project was represented at the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, displaying car-sharing theme as part of the project’s activities. Cross fertilization between the projects in this priority has also been a particular feature. For example, the Stratmos, NS Frits and Dryport projects have been meeting to discuss areas of mutual interest and possibilities for joint co-operation. Furthermore, the joint Dryport partnership agreed upon a statement towards the European Commission with regard to the TEN-T revision as a follow-up of an earlier response on the new white book for transport. The core comment in this reaction was that Dyports will be mentioned as important in the proposed core hubs thinking. TEN-T must not only connect major European areas but shall also deal with regional development.

The summarised status on activities for each project under Priority 3 can be found in the following.

3.1 To promote regional accessibility strategies

CARE-North (August 2009 – August 2012) Carbon Responsible Transport Strategies for the North Sea Area – Report No. 2 The project’s activities were included and discussed in a report written by ICLEI (Local Government for Sustainability) on the transport sector’s trends and policies in Europe, which is to serve as a guideline to the planning and implementation of sustainable urban mobility plans for cities of neighbouring EU countries Ukraine (Sevastopol) and Moldova (Chisinau).

The project was showcased in the ICLE (Local Government for Sustainability) co- organised 6th European Conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns in Dunkerque, France between 19-21 May 2010. More than 1800 persons participated in this international conference: Europe’s largest local sustainability event. The Lead Partner had the opportunity to present the project in a parallel session, and had an interactive discussion with the audience and other presenters.

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A project was represented at the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. The possibility was used as a promotion event in Bremen for the car-sharing theme as a part of the CARE-North activities. Workshops were held during the EXPO2010 in Shanghai i.e. “Carbon responsible transport strategies” organized in May 2010.

3.2 To promote the development of multi-modal and transnational transport corridors

StratMoS (Ext) (April 2009 – March 2011) Motorways of the Sea Strategic Demonstration Project - Report No. 5 Participation in Task Force meetings has enabled StratMoS partners to keep up to date with the latest news regarding Motorways of the Sea policies, planning and implementation and to inform ministries from all North Sea region countries about StratMoS process and results.

The project idea called "Logistics Hubs in the High North" has been pursued. There have been meetings both in Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Nenets and Kirkenes to discuss the idea and the cooperation with the "Partnership for Northern Sea Route" has been used for the promotion of it. An important part of the initiative is that it is pursues the possibility of logistics hubs in the High North to benefit from the newly established “Partnership for Transport and Logistics” within the “Northern Dimension” which is a cooperation between EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland. In discussions with the Ministry of Transport in Russia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway, the project idea may become a pilot project within the Northern Dimension Programme.

In Work Package C a final report on the concepts for dryports has been finalised and released. In work package D the systems analysis has also been finalised and the results have been fed back to the generic systems model. Progress with the projects demonstration projects continues.

3.3 To promote the development of efficient and effective logistics solutions

NS FRITS (January 2009 – December 2011) North Sea Freight and Intelligent Transport Solutions – Report No. 3 The project has continued to advance the NS FRITS system, including the development of wireless communication systems and the use of Smart phone applications, which have been researched, designed and tested. In addition, progress has been made with the three NS FRITS pilots around the North Sea Region - including using scenarios to demonstrate how the NS FRITS system will work in practice.

The NS FRITS stakeholder group has been strengthened and now includes involvement from European and national governments, logistics and transport providers, trade associations, port authorities, partners from other EU projects and law enforcement agencies. Further, the NS FRITS beneficiaries have linked with EU wide organisations including the International Union of Railways (UIC), TISPOL and Aquapol. The project has

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also worked to identify and develop areas of co-operation with other European projects, e.g. Smartfreight (7th Framework project).

The PUAC beneficiary met with UK Deputy Prime Minister in August 2010 and during the meeting took the opportunity to promote NS FRITS. In addition, PUAC met with a representative from the Freight and Logistics Division of the UK government - Department of Transport to investigate how the project can support national policy and legislation. AVCIS continue to brief the Home Office in the UK on NS FRITS. Both PUAC and AVCIS regularly attend TruckPol (UK National Crime Intelligence Service for freight crime) meetings to raise awareness of NS FRITS to TruckPol members.

Dryport (June 2008 – July 2012) A modal shift in practice – Report No. 4 Work on the projects Containerised Cargo Carbon Calculator (CCCC) and Destination Origin study progressed. The CCCC completed phase one of development work and was shown to the Haven Gateway (UK) steering group and then trialled with a series of potential users, including Mitsubishi, Transport Direct, P & O Ferrymasters, and Deben Transport. All supported the concept and gave suggestions as to what more to include in Phase II. Phase II has been authorised and should be complete by January 2011. With regards the Destination Origin study Haven Gateway is still continuing to work with the industry to find a way of accurately showing the destination and origin of cargo within the UK.

The joint Dryport partnership agreed upon a statement towards the European Commission with regard to the TEN-T revision as a follow-up of an earlier response on the new white book for transport. The core comment in this reaction was that Dyports will be mentioned as important in the proposed core hubs thinking. TEN-T must not only connect major European areas but shall also deal with regional development.

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Priority 4 – Promoting Sustainable and Competitive Communities

Overall Implementation Status Most of the eight projects that reported in the September 2010 round under Priority 4 have moved from start-up towards development and implementation phase. The grounds were prepared previously so that pilots and investments are being carried currently. Thus, the centre of activities lies on implementing diverse pilot solutions across the region regarding the project’s specific fields of actions, such as demographic change, rural empowerment, public space maintenance and energy efficient buildings. Implementation approaches are aiming to enable businesses and communities to move towards competitiveness and sustainability. The past reporting round has seen the transnational strategies being put into practice. For example, experiences and work developed through Waterways for Growth is providing input to a project commissioned by the German Ministry of Transport (BMVBS), which focuses on concepts and models for the future organisation, staffing and financial management for improving water tourism in Germany. Projects under priority 4 are starting to be heard on the political level and have continuously worked within publicity and contributed to national debates. First results and publications have led to contact and generated support by European level institutions such as the Committee of the Regions and the European Commission. During this reporting period the North Sea Commission adopted the Build with CaRe policy statement. It will now be forwarded to the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR). The policy statement was also used in a revised version to answer the EU consultation on the Energy Strategy 2020.

The summarised status on activities for each of the projects under Priority 4 can be found in the following.

4.1 Tackling the needs of areas in decline

DC Noise (June 2008 – June 2011) Demographic Change: New opportunities in shrinking Europe – Report No. 4 In Bremen, a competition took place 'Places of the future - only with networks' aimed at involving inhabitants and "unusual" stakeholders who have developed innovative solutions to deal with the demographic change. The competition showed the other DC NOISE partners a methodology on how to reach stakeholders, how to raise awareness and come up with innovative solutions. The contributions are now on a touring exhibition in Bremen Region.

Due to its success in the province of West-Flanders, the age scan has been recognised by the Flemish Government and several transnational projects. The Flemish Government has shown a genuine interest for promoting and extending its use. For example, they are currently considering further development and implementation on a large scale within Flanders of the age scan tool as an online web application.

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As part of communication activities a press release was sent to local media in Kristiansand Region, regarding Mentor program in Vennesla. The national broadcaster of Norway, NRK, with its local office at Sørlandet responded to the press release, and made a news story the news bulletin twice on the 7th of September.

VITAL (January 2009 – June 2013) Vital Rural Area – Report No. 3 Project partners continued to develop and implement pilot projects regarding empowering SMEs, regional branding and optimizing services. Two partners jointly developed innovative courses and trainings modules on renewable energy (solar heating, earth warmth and wind energy) for the employees of SMEs: The produced course is now being tested and improved in close cooperation with SMEs educational institutes and sector organisations. All project partners are working with a 9-steps plan in regional branding. As a result of this, partners developed various activities to further create a positive image of their region towards inhabitants, tourists and entrepreneurs. Carrying out an impact measurement of recent branding activities showed a 36% increase of the brand familiarity in one partner region. The scientific group that was installed previously continues to ensure that the project activities are in line with current scientific views and opinions.

4.2 Promoting sustainable growth solutions for expanding areas

CA! (Ext) (June 2009 – December 2012) Coast Alive! – Report No. 3 Project beneficiaries are active in their respective countries developing links with national level as well and national level policies. For example, in Denmark, the sub beneficiary - The Danish Forest and Nature Agency, a ministerial agency has participated in two of the projects stakeholder meetings. The project is also building on the results of former Interreg IIC and IIIB projects as well as developing links and co-operating with current projects i.e. Vital.

The project beneficiary North Jutland worked with a Danish television company, TV midt- vest, who made a series of 12 programmes about the North Sea Trail. During this a project representative talked about the project, its work and project initiatives such as the geo-coins and geo-caching.

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SURF (September 2009 – August 2012) Sustainable Urban Fringes – Report No. 3 Saxion University in The Netherlands has signed a ‘Knowledge Agreement’ on urban fringes with the Dutch Ministry of the Housing, Environmental Planning and Environment. Saxion will harvest new knowledge from projects that the Ministry is facilitating in urban fringes throughout The Netherlands, and Saxion will make the knowledge from SURF available to those projects.

Similarly, Enschede have had a strong influence on Dutch national policy on urban fringes. A delegation from the landscape team of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment had the opportunity to learn more about urban fringes during an excursion to Enschede and Hengelo on 23 September 2010. The tour of urban fringe areas was organised to provide inspiration for a new national policy on urban fringes.

WfG (January 2009 – December 2011) Waterways for Growth: Sustainable development of inland waterways in the North Sea Region – Report No. 3 Work is progressing on the framework for the sustainable development of inland waterways drawing upon input from the pilot actions and thematic working groups. An analysis has been carried out to map the relationship between the multi-functional use of inland waterways and EU policy and funding. This work will be extended to national & regional levels in the next project period. Specific pilot actions are under way in all partner areas related to business development, networking and clustering; the development of new water tourism offers and approaches; the creation and sustainable management of waterway focal/service points; the master planning of waterside regeneration and opening up of new waterway links; and the retention and development of freight transport on small dimension waterways. Experiences and work developed through WfG is providing input to a project commissioned by the German Ministry of Transport (BMVBS), which focuses on concepts and models for the future organisation, staffing and financial management for improving water tourism in Germany.

MP4 (September 2008 – September 2012) Making Places Profitable – Public and Private open spaces – Report No. 4 While most of the investment sites are under preparation, the work package activities regarding the transnational assessment of practice and the planning for place-keeping are progressing. An e-mapping method is being developed that is of interest for MP4 partners and planning/place-keeping authorities. The partners continuously develop their cooperation on the investment sites and staff exchanges are becoming more frequent as the work on the work packages progresses.

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The Critical Reporting mechanism for investment sites is now live and is used to capture transnational knowledge.

MP4 has successfully established contacts with non-partner stakeholders and is transferring transnational methods to other areas of the North Sea Region: An improvement project in Aarhus, Denmark, has been set up as a lab case of innovation and demonstration. Selected model agreements and planning models developed by MP4 will be adopted for planning and implementation. Aarhus is participating without financial support from MP4 or other EU programmes.

4.3 Promoting energy efficiency in settlements

BwC (August 2008 – October 2011) Build with CaRE – Mainstreaming Energy efficiency in the built environment – Report No. 4 During this reporting period the North Sea Commission adopted the Build with CaRe policy statement. It will now be forwarded to the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR). The policy statement was also used in a revised version to answer the EU consultation on the Energy Strategy 2020.

It provided input to the Build with CaRe communication work and it served as a base for several consultations on national level (such as a response to the Renewable Heat Incentive proposed by the UK). Provincie Groningen has been negotiating with the national government to find a solid and legal basis to implement the ambitions to lower the Energy Performance Contracting (EPC). In the beginning of 2009, this led to an agreement with the national government to implement the lower Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) from midterm 2010. Currently, the required legislation is being drawn up.

In addition, the European Commission has adopted a revised version of the European Performance of Building Directive (EPBD). This directive is of great importance to the development of energy efficient buildings and the Build with CaRe partnership is very active in the debate that has followed on national level.

ANSWER (September 2008 – August 2011) A North Sea Way – Report No. 4 Effective enabling of energy efficiency must work with – and be tailored to – the target audience. The publication Capturing the Entrepreneurial Spirit shows how Answer's approaches can join to provide local solutions that deliver real benefits; making a difference both economically and environmentally.

The Answer project continuously carries out energy audits to businesses resulting in practical steps to reduce their carbon footprint, including for example installing solar panels and looking into lighting options.

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The work of the Energy Business Clubs continues to promote innovation and energy savings amongst SMEs. The energy clubs aim at introducing the BAT (Best Available Techniques), not for single businesses, but for clusters of businesses.

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National Contact Point Activities in 2010 Each of the countries of the North Sea Region Programme has set up a National Contact Point for additional support for project development and implementation on national level. The National Contact Points work in close cooperation with the Programme Secretariat and serve as an important source of information on a national level. Project applicants and beneficiaries are welcome to consult their National Contact Point for assistance in: • the search for project partners, • the development and implementation of transnational projects, • any country specific information.

Finally, it should be noted that it is only Denmark, who is currently not having assigned a national contact point. Please contact the Secretariat, if you have any questions.

1 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 15

Contact Point Activities in the United Kingdom during 2010

1. General comments

2010 was an important and busy year in terms of Contact Point activity. In the early part of the year, there was a great deal of activity advising UK partners about the Fifth Call which closed in April 2010 and helping them develop the projects and their role in them.

The year was a challenging one in the latter part of the year as UK Government spending restrictions and changes to the regional structure in the UK led to the withdrawal of some UK partners including Lead Beneficiaries in three projects. However, with goodwill and a positive approach from everyone involved, new beneficiaries have been found and the effect on the Programme has been minimised.

In addition, UK beneficiaries have continued to play a positive role in new INTERREG developments such as the Cluster Initiative.

2. Development of projects

The Fifth Call for projects closed in March 2010 and an important part of Contact Point Activity in the first half of 2010 was the development of projects. The UK was Lead Beneficiary on four projects in this Call and two were successful – Lo-Pinod and I-Transfer. With all four projects, a number of bilateral meetings were held with the Project sponsors and myself and I also attended project development meetings where possible.

I also contacted the two unsuccessful projects to explain the reasons for rejection in the Steering Committee and discussed the possibility of a re-submission in a later Call if the projects could be improved

2 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 15

. There was a particular emphasis on the development of Transport and Accessibility projects as there was still a significant amount of funds left in Priority Three (Transport and Accessibility) Lo-Pinod and I-Transfer were in this Priority.

In addition, two UK led projects applied for extensions and were successful. These were Waterways for Growth and Northern Maritime University. There were UK partners in all newly approved projects and an important role was to explain the mechanisms of INTERREG to these new partners.

During the run-up to the Call deadline, two promising UK led projects decided not to submit and a third merged with a similar project

Prior to this Call was a Project Workshop in Antwerp held early in 2010. This allowed project developers to meet with the Secretariat and Contact Points. This proved very successful and UK partners that attended valued the advice from these meetings.

3. Working with approved projects

The changes made by the UK Government to the regional structure in the UK had an effect on approved projects. In the middle of the year, the UK Government stated that it would close Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) by March 2012. This led to changes in three projects led by the Regional Development Agencies and an important part of my activities during the latter part of 2010 was ensuring a smooth change over between Lead Beneficiaries in these projects.

The UK Debt Reduction Programme has also led to the withdrawal of UK beneficiaries in a number of other projects and in the most cases they have been replaced by UK beneficiaries or their allocation re-distributed to other beneficiaries. However, this has been a lengthy process including a series of meetings with partners.

3 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 15

A major development this year has been the development of service visits which have been organised by the Secretariat. I attended the service visits of the Motorways of the Sea and vital Rural Areas.

A Contact Point is asked to give assistance when a Project Beneficiary needs to make changes in their contribution to the projects or when their budget needs to be changed. There have been a number of problems of this sort – even in projects that are generally performing well. However, I have also attended a number of Project Partner meetings where it has been pleasing to see the progress that the beneficiaries are making. Invitations to these meetings are increasing and will become more important as projects produce their key outcomes and results. It is important that Contact Points work closely with the Secretariat and partners so that project results have the widest publicity and impact.

4. Meetings and other activities

During 2010, I attended all Programme Monitoring and Programme Steering Committee Meetings. I attend these meetings as an Observer and feel that my attendance is important so that I can advise national and regional contacts of the outcome of these meetings and advise potential project beneficiaries on deadlines for project applications etc. There have also been regular meetings with colleagues at Communities and Local Government which is the Lead Department for INTERREG in the UK. In May 2010, there was a change of Government in the UK and the regular meetings that I have with CLG have proved invaluable. There have also been regular six monthly meetings with CLG, the Secretariat and myself in London

The Annual Conference in Stavanger, Norway was also an important event and I was the Facilitator in one of the Cluster Workshops.

4 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 15

The Cluster Project initiative was an important one so that the strategic significance of the Programme can be enhanced. I was a member of the Cluster Reference Group and also publicised the Initiative widely amongst UK beneficiaries and met those partners who wanted to take part

Making presentations at seminars organised in the United Kingdom is an important part of the work as a Contact Point. These are important occasions to publicise the Programme. The way in which the programme is publicised happens in two ways. It is a key opportunity to advertise Programme Calls and assist the search for partners and it is also an opportunity to promote the results of existing projects. However, the number of seminars attended declined during the year as it became clear that the majority of funds had been committed by the programme. Transport seminars were still a good opportunity to publicise the opportunities in the Transport and Accessibility Priority.

5 Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme______Appendix 15

Contact Point Activities in the Netherlands during 2010

1. General comments (1) Lidwien Slothouwer-van Schipstal, employed by Agentschap NL, has acted as Contact Point for the Programme in 2010. (2) The e-newsletters on INTERREG B and C in the Netherlands have been streamlined; the B and C programmes work within a standardized format. It is set up according to corporate guidelines of Agentschap NL and INTERREG, so that cross references can be made, but at the same time the specific programme (i.e. the North Sea Region Programme) is profiled and targeted. 3 Editions of the e-newsletter, in Dutch, have been sent to 400 subscribers. Additionally, a display card, in Dutch, presenting the 41 projects (out of the Programme total of 46) running with Dutch partners in the INTERREG IVB North Sea Region Programme has been included.

2. Development of projects (1) At the end of 2009, it looked as if there was hardly any Dutch interest in Priority 3 matters. Being active in the shaping and communication of the Guidance Note for the 5th Call and participation in the Project development seminar in Antwerp, Belgium, has resulted in two approved project proposals with a Dutch Lead Beneficiary. Liaising with the Maritiem Loket (counter for stakeholders in the maritime sector) at Agentschap NL has proven to be valuable as many potential stakeholders were identified. This led to participation of 5 Dutch partners in 3 approved project proposals. (2) Municipalities still lag behind in participation. The presentations at two specifically targeted seminars in 2010 (by invitation of VNG (Association of Netherlands Municipalities) and G32 (network of 32 large and medium sized gemeenten, municipalities, in the Netherlands) has led to enquiries by 4 municipalities. Furthermore, support has been given to a master student of Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, who published a thesis on the added value of INTERREG for municipalities in the Netherlands.

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(3) The cultural sector participated in the IIIB programme; even though the IVB programme has been running for quite some time now, explanation on (lacking) possibilities for the cultural sector in the IVB programme is still asked for. This explanation was given at an EU funding workshop organised by SICA (Dutch centre for international cultural activities), reaching 100 representatives in the cultural sector. Furthermore, support has been given to an intern of Provincie Fryslan, whom in 2010 researched what needs to be fulfilled to get to a successful bid on a cultural matter, i.e. Frisian language, within INTERREG. (4) On issues of energy, sustainable building and sustainable area development, cooperation has been sought with the Dutch Contact Point of the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme and policy advisors at Agentschap NL. The input has been used in discussions on (non) possibilities for the topic of corporate social responsibility in INTERREG with MVO Nederland (MVO is a Dutch acronym for corporate social responsibility) and Qoin (consultancy firm). (5) The four previous Calls for Proposals made it possible, at the start of 2010, to comprise a list of practical guidelines on how to fill in the application form and how to submit. This has been used in advising and liaising with Dutch project promoters on the ideas of Sustainable Airport Solutions and E-Harbours (approved at Steering Committee meeting 5); Virtual Construction, ITRACT and SIMASS (rejected at SC meeting 5 and to be resubmitted in 2011); Electric Car Routes (to be submitted in 2011) and IMPRES (not to be submitted).

3. Working with approved projects (1) With 41 project running with Dutch partners, troubleshooting in cases where project partners are in doubt on how to proceed is asked for. This covers diverse issues, ranging from decisions to withdraw from a partnership (NSSP, Rotterdam Film Fund and Ministry of Economic Affairs; POYO, Stichting Lijmpraktijk), liaising in finding a new Dutch partner (NSSP, Stichting Dutch Independents; POYO, Technische Universiteit Delft), applying for an extension (Ballast Water Opportunity, VRA and MP4) to advising on state aid and procurement matters (MARE). (2) A briefing was made for policymakers at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environmental Affairs, so to prepare them for participation in a Creative City

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Challenge event and the kick off event of Green Sustainable Airports (at which the CP was present). In addition, the NSSP project has been introduced to policy makers at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, so to shape policy guidelines on the Dutch film sector. (3) The participating in the service visits of Ballast Water Opportunity, Climate Proof Areas and DC Noise has generated their interest in the concept of clustering.

4. Meetings and other activities (1) Overall, fifteen meetings with the INTERREG representatives at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environmental Affairs have taken place on issues regarding preparing of the Presidency of the Netherlands at the two Monitoring Committee meetings, input gathering for the two Workgroups (Clustering and Evaluation), commenting on the final report INTERREG IIIB and sharing views on the future of European regional policy. (2) The major task in the first half of 2010 was to prepare for the fifth Steering Committee meeting in June 2010. The preparations included the meeting of the national Advisory Committee (Dutch subcommittee) and a CP meeting. This meeting was followed by the Annual Event in Stavanger, Norway. (3) The CP has been representing the Dutch delegation in the interview panel meeting with applicants for the cluster facilitator position in Viborg, Denmark, two Workgroup Evaluation meetings, in Brussels and Haarlem, and two Workgroup Clustering meetings in Brussels. (4) During the last semester of 2010 the CP has focused at pioneering the concept of clustering by participating in the Cluster Projects Development Workshop and two cluster project idea meetings.

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Contact Point Activities in Flanders in 2010

1. General comments Carolien Ruebens, employed by Enterprise Flanders, has acted as transnational Contact Point for the Programme in 2010. Staff time of the transnational Contact Point is divided between the two available, transnational Programmes in Flanders. The division was made as follows: 30% of staff time is dedicated to the North Sea Region Programme and 70% is dedicated to the North West Europe Programme.

2. Development of projects In 2010 a number of general questions from Flemish organizations were answered, both written (via e-mail) and verbally (phone call or meeting) with regard to the project development process and the general requirements of the North Sea Region programme. At meetings and events potential stakeholders were informed about the opportunities the North Sea Region Programme had to offer. The following project ideas received support in 2010: SIMASS, Chemical Supply Chain, Connecting Food Port Regions, INSECO, Vital Rural Areas Extension, SURF Extension, Vlaamse Baaien and E-Harbours. Support of project ideas involves the reading of the project proposal, drawing up of orientational advice, checking a project idea against programme requirements, giving financial advice and advice with regard to the content, informing project promoters and to answer questions with regard to the formal requirements of the Programme. A number of partner search activities were facilitated by the Flemish CP, both on request from Flemish partners to create a transnational partnership, and on request from foreign project promoters that are looking for Flemish partners. The facilitation of partner search is either done by e-mail or by phone call, subject to the nature of the project idea. On March 7th a letter has been drafted and sent out. The aim of the letter was to inform potential, Flemish project promoters about the opportunities within the North

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Sea Region programme with regard to transport and connectivity and to invite them to submit new project ideas.

3. Working with approved projects On 19th of January 2010 a First level Control Workshop was organized. The target audience were Flemish project managers, financial managers and first level controllers that are involved with North Sea Region projects. Both members from the JTS and Flemish Second Level Control were present at this workshop. The Flemish Contact Point was responsible for the practical organization of the workshop, specifically for the catering, location, speakers, communications, agenda and follow- up with regard to the workshop. A meeting with the DRYPORT project also took place to discuss a possible extension for the project. Throughout the year, a number of Flemish partners within approved projects have been supported, such as to Connecting Food Port Regions, CRUISEGATEWAY and Biochar, during the process of designating their first level controllers. To avoid any delays with regard to the spending of Flemish partners in the framework of the Programme, the Flemish CP contacted those partners that had not yet assigned a First Level Controller to see what could be to done to start/ speed up the process.

4. Meetings and other activities The Flemish CP attended the Transnational Project Development workshop in Antwerp on the 26th and 27th of January 2010 and participated in the individual meetings with potential project promotors. Contact was made during one of these individual sessions with the Flemish Lead Beneficiary from the Connecting Food Port Regions projects. Three weeks later the Flemish CP participated at a partner meeting from the project. Participation in meetings and events from approved projects also took place, such as the kickoff event from the Living North Sea project, Feedback meetings from the ANSWER project, site visit at the Climate Proof Areas project and the workshop on Fostering Creativity in Cities from the Creative City Challenge project.

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The Flemish CP also attended Steering Committee n°5 and Monitoring Committee n°7 in the role of observer. At the Joint Annual Conference of the North Sea Region Programme and the North Sea Commission in Stavanger and at the (Cluster) Project development workshop, the Flemish CP acted as a rapporteur in workshops. A report was made both times on the concrete outcome of the workshops in which the Flemish CP participated.

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Contact Points Activities in Norway in 2010

General comments Dwindling funds Back to 50%

Development of projects Clean North Sea Shipping (CNSS) – participation in project development meetings and advising in relation to application for 5th call.

Advise Cruise Destination Hardangerfjord, Norwegian partner in Cruise Gateway with application under 5th call.

Advice for Norwegian partners for the 6th call, ordinary projects and clusters. For example Zero Missions Resource Org. with their project participation in Electric Car Routes and Bioforsk budget advice and project participation in Green Growing reapplication.

Worked with MTC cluster project in order to ensure involvement of a Norwegian partner.

Working with approved projects Norwegian CP attended CNSS kick-off in Bergen.

Coast Alive, advice and liaising.

Meetings and other activities Norwegian CP attended LB seminar in Antwerp 26th-27th January.

Norwegian CP attended JAC in Stavanger in June. A separate networking seminar with focus on smart project administration was organised with JTS for Norwegian

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partners prior to the conference. A networking dinner was also arranged. There were registered 20 delegates. Unfortunately several were delayed due to the ash cloud from Iceland.

Norwegian CP arranged a first level control seminar in Bergen 6th-7th October in cooperation with JTS. All together there were 14 participants and presenters. This number of participants reflects the fact that each controller can have responsibility for several Norwegian partners or projects.

Norwegian CP attended Cluster building development workshop and LB seminar 11th-14th Oct. in Bremen and helped in facilitating the maritime cluster workshop.

Norwegian CP arranged an Interreg project seminar in Bergen on 29th October as part of the Europe in my region. The seminar highlighted several Interreg projects with partners from Western Norway giving special focus to the North Sea Region programme.

Norwegian CP attended International network for Norwegian county councils in Kristiansand 4th-5th Nov.

Norwegian CP attended Cluster reference group meeting in Brussels 23rd November.

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Contact Point Activities in Sweden in 2010

1. General comments In Sweden the NCP is also the secretariat of the sub committee. Much effort is needed to encourage Swedish organisations to be Lead Beneficiaries – a challenge.

2. Development of projects Initiated a regional WG to develop a Transport project, several meetings, processed a paper. Hopefully it will continue after a time out. Adviced in meetings on IT project SPINS; not finalized. Supported Suscod Swedish partner in joining the project.

3. Working with approved projects Arranged 2 national project partner seminars (1 regular, 1 specific FLC) 45 attendants each Much phone contacts with project partners on FLC issues Continous contact with the 3 swedish LBs.

4. Meetings and other activities 1) Arranged 10 meetings: - 2 sub committee meetings - 4 meetings with national advisory network (connected to sub committee) - 4 meetings with regional advisory network (municipalities), to inform and encourage project ideas/development.

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2) Attended NSR Programme activities, about 10 meetings (AC Stavanger, observer at PMC and PSC, WGs for Clustering and AC, LB and Project development seminars).

3) Represented NSR programme at national/regional/local activities, about 6 meetings (Ministry, Tillväxtverket, Federation of Regional & Local authorities), and at preparations for the biannual national Interreg Forum (no 3 in Stockholm February 2011).

4) Presented the NSR programme at general seminars (40-60 attendants) - a national on Intelligent Energy - a regional on culture and growth

5) Represented NSR programme at an EU Project Exhibition Event in Göteborg (350 attendants).

6) Ambition to keep the homepage updated and user-friendly.

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Contact Point Activities in Germany in 2010

1. General comments The NCP for Germany is part of the ministerial administration of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and acting autonomously on behalf of the four participating German federal stats. Claudia Eggert, employed by the Free and Hanseatic city of hamburg has acted as National Contact Point for Germany in 2010, accompanied by Petra Devillers, both being civil servants in Hamburg. In a very close cooperation with Antje Hauptvogel and the entire German subcommittee the NCP continued to play an active role in project development as well as programme promotion on an transnational level.

2. Development of projects During the reporting period the NCP focussed again on supporting and the development of regional projects and assisted projects in a huge number of face to face contacts and several project preparation meetings all over the year. The NCP organised a German workshop for upcoming “Water related projects” as well as Cluster Idea Cafés being regular part of the German Annual Event (see below).

3. Working with approved projects While the period of generating new Interreg-projects is step by step coming to an end in 2011, the NCP-activities are going to be more focussed on approved projects. The NCP sees his tasks changing into a role of supporting running projects and help them getting good results, fruitful networks and an excellent dissemination. Currently there are 43 projects running with German participation. The NCP kept in touch with these projects, supports them in any matters, helps answering upcoming questions, partly visits their project events (mainly within Germany), informs them about programme changes / updates as well as about events (mainly via website/email). Additionally the NCP fosters networking and clustering of projects on the German Annual Event as well as on workshops for specific topics (e.g. the workshop for

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waterprojects, see below). Keeping the existing close connections to the JTS, towards Brussels and making use of several thematic and existing networks in Northern Germany, the NCP could be established more than ever as a powerful agent of the projects interests. Additionally the NCP publishes regularly project outlines of all the projects with German partners on the website and keeps them up to date.

4. Meetings and other activities (1) The NCP took part in several CP meetings during 2010, within the NSR Programme as well as with German CPs from other Interreg Programmes (like Central Europe, Alpine Space, Northwest Europe). (2) The NCP attended meetings for the preparation of the 5th call as well as the preparation meeting of the Annual Conferences in 2010/2011. Furthermore the NCP attended the Annual Conference in 2010 of the Programme in Stavanger, Norway and played an active role by supporting the programme. (3) The Cluster initiative is seen as a very important approach. That´s why the CP attended all the Working groups on Clustering during the reporting period and translated the relevant information to German partners and projects. permanently. (4) The NCP took part in the Programmes communication seminar. (5) The NCP continued being host for FLC-seminars together with the JTS. Two FLC-Seminars were arranged with a brilliant response of more than 90 German participants (project partners as well as auditors). The contents were published on the German website. (6) The NCP took part in all the meetings of the German Subcommittee as well as the MC and SC meetings as observer. (7) Three newsletters have been published and sent out to about 900 subscribers. (8) Updated news have been regulary published on the German website; email notices have been sent to approx. 900 subscribers. (9) The sharepoint for the German subcommittee kept updated. (10) The German Annual Event for stakeholders has been organised in 2010 in Hamburgs city hall with about 140 participants. Matt Nicols attended as one of the key note speakers and presented the cluster principles to a very interested audience.

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Another highlight of the conference has been a vast discussion on the upcoming structural fund period 2014 to 2021. Cluster ideas were developed. (11) In 2011 one of the main activities of the NCP will be on disseminating the programmes result in a quite impressive manner. In summertime a tendering process has been initiated and a powerful consultant has started his work in the beginning of 2011.