The Northern Periphery and Arctic Program (NPA) was invited the elighthouse project to the “Arctic Project Clustering Event” on May 10th to 11th 2017 in Skellefteå, Sweden. The two-day collaboration seminar and workshop gathered approximately 100 participants all over arctic rural regions. The aim of the event was to support and encourage projects funded by four European Union programs and to identify opportunities to collaborate.
The Northern Periphery and Arctic Program (NPA) was invited the elighthouse project to the “Arctic Project Clustering Event” on May 10th to 11th 2017 in Skellefteå, Sweden. The two-day collaboration seminar and workshop gathered approximately 100 participants all over arctic rural regions. The aim of the event was to support and encourage projects funded by four European Union programs and to identify opportunities to collaborate.
Three e- elighthouse key experts received personal invitations to the Skellefteå meeting. Markku Hienonen from Oulu Building Supervision Office, Erik Eklund from Umeå Kommun and project manager Antti Haapalahti from Oulu University of Applied Sciences participated with 5 other energy projects to the event which, besides energy efficiency, had three more action lines, namely Entrepreneurship, E-Health and Bio-economy.
“Meeting with other colleagues and key program persons opened our eyes for more opportunities and new options which are currently available for energy-related actions, especially for cold and harsh regions”, concluded Markku Hienonen about experiences and feedback after the event.
Organizing the clustering event was three EU Interreg programs, namely NPA, Nord and Botnia-Atlantica and one European Neighbouring Instrument (ENI CBC) program Kolarctic, all operating in overlapping rural regions in Nordic and Atlantic/Russian districts. The programs as combined launched a new funding opportunity – mini clustering project which supports targeted actions to be jointly done by three projects funded by any of mentioned four programs.
“It is good to know who are the people working in program and projects level. Also, it was great to talk with colleagues and other professionals working with the same issues and challenges”, summed up Erik Eklund, energy adviser and National coordinator from Umeå Municipality.
