REACHING FOR THE FUTURE Report to the Community of the Inner Goriška Region 2013 January, 2013 Kristjan Dekleva, Matjaž Dolenc, Katarina Jazbec, Niko Järnberg, Tjaša Markočič, Anja Perat, Uroš Sraj, Taja Špacapan Acknowledgements We would like to thank all the members of the community who shared with us their opinions and aspirations about their communities. We would especially like to thank Simon Klaut, Head of the Office of the Mayor of Nova Gorica, for assisting us in setting up our interviews. We would also like to thank Tanja Kožuh, Director of the Primorska Technology Park, for hosting our presentation on December 14. Finally, we would like to thank Marko Jaklič of the Faculty of Economics and Sheila Martin, Fulbright Scholar from Portland State University, for mentoring and guiding us. TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 INTrODUction Methodology and Data sources 3 Vision for Inner Goriška region 6 Time frame 9 Strategy Goals 7 0 rEGIONal Assessment 1 Overview 10 Strengths 17 Weaknesses 25 Opportunities 21 challenges 28 STraTEGIc ObJEcTIVES aND PrOGraMS 31 creating Opportunity for Young Talent: Program descriptions 34 SUPPOrT for HIGH Potential STarTUPS: PrOGraM DEScrIPTIONS 44 current business support facilities 45 IMProving THE rEGION’S VISIbIlITY aND IMaGE: PrOGraM DEScriptions 53 INcrEaSING TOUrISM INcOME: PrOGraM DEScriptions 56 ENcOUraGING rEGIONal CollabOration 61 EValUaTION PlaN: How WIll WE know THaT THE strategy worKED? 62 ConclUSIONS aND NExT STEPS 65 bIblIOGraPHY 67 THE lIST OF INTErVIEWEES 69 1 Photo: Občina Šempeter-Vrtojba Photo: leo caharija Photo: www.rence.si INTRODUCTION prosperousThe inner Goriška future. region is ripe with possibilities. With a beautiful natural environment, an educated population, a strategic location, and strong public infrastructure, the region has the potential for a For the inner Goriška region we offer a vision of an inclusive and united six municipalities. This region includes proud local communities, connected to their local identities and promoting a high quality of life for their citizens. This is a vibrant, international region, blessed with many natural gifts: sunshine, good food, award winning wines and the talent that drives their technological progress. Entrepreneurs living here recognize the opportunities afforded by the abundance of these natural gifts. They are using them for creating new successful businesses and vibrant community spaces. We pursue these opportunities as a region while preserving the authenticity and diversity of our six communities. The purpose of this report is to communicate a strategy for making this vision real. We developed this vision and strategy over the course of a 12-week review of the region’s core assets and opportunities The project group comprised eight students from Faculty of Economics in ljubljana mentored by a professor from the Faculty of Economics and a visiting Professor from of Portland State University in the United States. This report is the final product of this effort. We hope that members of the community can use this information to further investigate and implement these ideas. Photo: Smaragdna pot Photo: Občina brda Photo: NSi 2 METHODOLOGY AND DATA SOURCES We used several sources of information in putting together this report: • Demographic and economic statistics from the Statistical Office of the republic of Slovenia; • reports and plans that have been written for the region in the past; • opportunities.Interviews with key community leaders. We chose our 20 interviewees, listed in the appendix, based on their influence in the community and their knowledge of the community’s assets and after gathering these data, we identified and discussed the region’s main opportunities, challenges, strengths and threats. This led us to a set of strategic objectives, programs to achieve each objective, and suggestions for implementing and evaluating each program. The five strategic objectives include: • create Opportunity for Young Talent, • Support high potential startups, • Increase thetourism region’s Income, visibility, and • • Encourage regional collaboration. after developing our initial ideas, we presented them to all the interviewers and other guests. The Photo: Občina Nova Gorica presentation took place at Primorska Technology Park near Nova Gorica on December 14, 2012. There were 30 people present, who were also eager to discuss the future of the region and provided valuable input for this report. We found that inner Goriška region has many significant advantages. It is an attractive area, with a stunning natural environment and indigenous and diverse cultures. but there is significant opportunity to develop this region, which consists Photo: Niko Järnberg of six municipalities, into a vibrant world region by promoting and building on inner Goriška’s creative, cultural and recreational experiences. because we had only 12 weeks to complete the study, we chose to focus on just a few strategies that we feel can have an immediate and longer term impact on the region. Surely, there are others we could have chosen, but we wanted to conduct a more thorough analysis of a few strategies. Photo: Občina Nova Gorica 3 Regional Definition Throughout this profile, we refer the 6 municipalities as the Inner Goriška region. We have chosen to define the region as the previous administrative Unit of Nova Gorica which included the six municipalities, highlighted in Figure 1, including: • bKanal,rda • • Miren-Kostanjevica, • Nova Gorica, • renče-Vogrsko, • Šempeter-Vrtojba. Figure 1: Map of the Inner Goriška region 4 Photo: Občina Brda We chose this definition for following reasons: community. • The leaders and residents of the region perceive these six municipalities to be a cohesive regional • Taken together, the communities represent a commute shed - a regional economy within which people travel to work, shop, and recreate. • municipalityThese economic within and it. social interactions provide the citizens of the region a shared interest in the future of the region as a whole and in the economic, environmental, and social health of each although we believe that this definition makes sense, it presented some practical problems for data gathering. because the Statistical Office of the republic of Slovenia defines the Statistical region as a larger region, many valuable statistics are only available for the larger area; we clearly identify tables and charts employing this definition of statistical region. In most cases, we have gathered data available for municipalities and made comparisons to the national and EU averages. For some important variables the data is simply unavailable. also note that if the year of a given statistic is not specified it always refers to the year 2010. 5 VISION FOR INNER Goriška REGION VISION: The Inner Goriška region is an international, vibrant, connected group of communities promoting a high quality of life for its citizens. Our future depends on the efforts of entrepreneurs who recognize the opportunities afforded by the abundance of our natural gifts: sunshine, good food, award winning wines and the talent that drives our technological progress. We pursue these opportunities as a region while preserving the authenticity and diversity of our six communities Photo: Google Photo: Občina brda below we are presenting goals which will help us to achieve the vision. These three goals are connected and mutually reinforcing as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Our Goals for the Inner Goriška Region. 6 STRATEGY GOALS Goal 1: Promote a high quality of life Ask any ten people what a high quality of life is, and you’ll probably get ten different answers. But most people look for the same four attributes in their community: a clean, healthy and beautiful environment; opportunities to participate in cultural, civic, and recreational activities; opportunities to connect socially; and economic opportunity. Our first goal is to create a community that meets these aspirations for its residents. talented people, they also attract companies that need because communities with a high quality of life attract of life not only makes life easier and more pleasant for those people. This means that having a high quality citizens, but it also can be a positive force for the business environment and can generate citizen’s commitment to the community’s future. For Goriška region, community members identify several factors as important to their assessment of the quality of life. First, the region is blessed with a number of natural attractedassets that by make the warm it a pleasant and sunny place weather to live comparedand support to the food, wine, and tourism industries. Many people are deal of sports pleasure for those who are fans of water adrenalineothers parts sports. of Slovenia. On the otherThe Soča side, rmountainsiver offers and a good hills Photo: Leo Caharija someare welcoming romantic spotall the or historicalhikers and remains. runners to discover secret paths and trails and with a little luck you can find historicalcultural and sites. social Socialization assets are is importantalso very importantfor people to feelthe regions citizens. The region is blessed with cultural and suchwelcome as youth and committedclubs, bars, to theaters their community. and cultural and centers, while there are a number of opportunities for social gathering many feel that this is one area where the region needs to improve, especially events and venues that attract youth communityfrom across commitment the entire region. from youth.This is especially