Sharing best practices and engaging clusters in Romania
The year 2024 kickstarted in Cluj-Napoca, Romania,with the 2nd DEBUTING local stakeholder group meeting, including sharing best practices and engaging clusters and local stakeholders in a DEBUTING workshop. The meeting was organized by the project partner North-West Regional Development Agency, in collaboration with the Romanian Academy as LSG member.
The meeting brought together over 20 participants from the North-West Region of Romania, focusing on the exchange of cross-cultural best practices, stakeholders engagement and local synergies. The participants were representatives from the private and public domains, with a high representation from cluster organizations. The agenda included the status of the gender equality within business support structures and the subsequent steps in the DEBUTING Project.
Relevant good practices collected during 2023 from the interregional meetings organized by our project partners from France and Finland were presented at the meeting, directly by the participant LSG members: AgroTransilvania Cluster and Cluj Innovation Park.
The participants have been also actively involved in a workshop facilitated by the North-West RDA external expert, by identifying challenges and solutions related to gender equality from their perspective. During the session, debates occurred, prompting participants to discuss differences in structure and gender stereotypes in education and society. The significance of fair education and appropriate guidance for young people based on their individual abilities was underlined. Additionally, participants engaged in discussions about the estimated impact of the implementation of gender equality measures by increasing competitiveness for clusters company members. The workshop conclusions will be integrated by the project Advisory Partner (KAU) into a benchmarking analysis, by collecting similar exercises conducted within all partner regions.
The meeting concluded with an overview of the next project activities. In 2024, best practices will be further collected in the next interregional meetings: in the meeting held in Stuttgart, Germany, and the upcoming meetings inPamplona, Spain, in April and Gdansk, Poland, in June. As the project progresses, these upcoming meetings are aimed to significantly enhance collaborative endeavours towards advancing gender equality across borders.