4th  RSG meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria

Foundation Cleantech Bulgaria, PP-5 in the GRESS project, organized the fourth RSG meeting on May 14th, 2021. Being consistent in the high-level cooperation with the responsible authorities and stakeholder organizations, Cleantech Bulgaria welcomed for an interactive meeting representative of the Ministry of Economy, Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, and Sofia Tech Park for discussing the most recent development of the GRESS project in the context of the new programming period.

Good practices from the regions

Good practices from the partner regions collected in the course of 2020 were presented together with the recent analysis of the national strategic documents focused on the support to start-ups and SMEs in the green transition.

Particular interest represented the experience of MCBO on supporting the start-up ecosystem in the Emilia-Romagna region and further exploration of the partner’s practices will take place in the following months. Additionally, the participants discussed the development of the national strategic documents and the applicable measures for supporting start-ups and SMEs in the green transition. It was evident that the strategic documents become more flexible in terms of measures and the GRESS project has impacted this process to a good extent.

Importance of synergies

The participants affirmed the importance of key stakeholders working in synergy for the design and deployment of support measures with real impact for SMEs transition and start-ups development. Based on the outcomes of the meeting and the intensive work with the policy instrument Operational Programme “Innovation and Competitiveness” 2014-2020, Foundation Cleantech Bulgaria’s team in collaboration with an external consultant will draft the first version of the action plan with suggested improvements for the policy instrument that are envisaged to roll out in Programme “Competitiveness and Innovation in the Enterprises” 2021-2027.