On June 27 was held in Budapest the first training seminar addressed to the coordinators of projects funded under the second call of the Danube Transnational Programme.

South Muntenia Regional Development Agency, through representatives from the Development Department, attended this event as Lead partner of the newest project for which it obtained non-reimbursable financing “Danube S3 Cluster – Transnational Cluster Cooperation active on Agro-Food, based on the Smart Specialisation Approach in the Danube region”. The financing contract, which started on July 2nd, received the highest score among 22 projects selected for funding under this call.

The objective of the training seminar was to inform the representatives of the Lead partners of the following aspects: contracting procedures, technical and financial reporting, the eligibility of the expenditures, the communication strategy, the reallocation procedure of the budget within budgetary lines and work packages, as well as the Capitalization Strategy of the projects. Practical exercises have also been carried out with regard to periodic reporting in the eMS system.

The project aims to leverage the innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Danube area by developing smart and coordinated cluster policies in the context of RIS3, enhance innovation management knowledge and skills and foster transnational cluster cooperation in Agro-Food sector.

This project is implemented in the period 2 July 2018 – 30 June 2021. The total budget of this project is 1.790.445,70 euro, out of which 194.170,40 euro is the budget of South Muntenia Regional Development Agency. South Muntenia RDA’s contribution is 2%, representing 3.883,40 euro. The project consortium is composed of 15 partners and 5 associated strategic partners. The partners are: South Muntenia Regional Development Agency – project leader, STEINBEIS – Germany, Pannon Business Association – Hungary, Maribor University – Slovenia, CRIMM – Romania, EKO-SUSTAV – Waste Management (EKO-SUSTAV Ltd) – Croatia, Bioeconomy Cluster – Slovacia, IFKA Institutio of Public Law non-profit towards the development of the industry - Hungary, Supporting Centre for SMEs– RUSE, Bulgary, INMA Bucharest, Romania, ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster Murska Sobota – Slovenia, the Faculty of Technical Sciences – Serbia, the Development Association NERDA – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Technology Transfer Network – Chisinau, Moldova, The Institute for Market Research, Environmental and Economic Problems – Ukraine. The Associated Strategic Partners are: the Ministry of Economy – Romania, Academy of Sciences of Moldova, GREENLINE Western Balkans Cluster Foundation – Bosnia and Herzegovina, National Technical University - 'Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute' - Ukraine and the Ministry for Economy, Entrepreneurship and Commerce – Croatia.