On Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd October 2019, the kick off meeting was held in Trento, in the ex-Giunta room of the Autonomous province of Trento, which launches Interreg Europe Dialog, the project of the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF) - Interregional Cooperation which was created with the aim of identifying, discussing and replicating best practices in the field of social innovation and local development and creating on the basis of these common working models in the various political fields of priority intervention from the various European countries.

The project involves the participation of 6 European countries of which the Autonomous Province of Trento is the lead partner. The other countries involved are: The Land of Lower Saxony (Germany), the Chamber of Commerce of Vrasta (Bulgaria), the Region of Flanders (Belgium), the Region of Castile La Mancha (Spain), the Canton Ticino (Switzerland) .

The project starts from the idea that a welfare system that has the citizens as its final receivers to be really accepted and responsive to the final needs of citizens must necessarily provide for the active participation of all stakeholders, the dialogue between stakeholders and political decision-makers not only in the design but also in all the stages of local policy implementation. In fact, the new political fields of action, which are based on the use of new technologies and which aim to create significant added value, in terms of growth and professional employment, require sharing, agreement and acceptance.

These are the reasons why the 6 Dialog Partners met at the kick off meeting in Trento to formally start the project.

The two days of the Kick off-meeting are organized to initiate mutual knowledge, to present their respective economic contexts, and to illustrate each case study and best practices. The case studies range from social innovation, to the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, from the green economy, to tools for reducing the unemployment rate through the birth of micro-enterprises. The goal is to define a common and shared work model among the participating actors, supported by a scientific committee which will assess its effectiveness.

The province of Trento uses Smart specializations, in the specific field of mechatronics, as topics for discussion and discussion, with attention to the employment aspects that this sector can generate, as well as the calls for funding for new entrepreneurial projects.

This first phase of work will provide for the identification, modeling and transfer of best practices which will be followed by the drafting of a document that will be adopted by the various administrations.