Platforms to help mitigate the impact of COVID-19

Soon after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, different economic development organisations across Europe have started collecting and displaying evidences and good practices for policymakers on how to mitigate the short- and longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy. This article provides an overview of some of the most relevant web-based platforms for policymakers in the field of SME competitiveness.

Interreg Europe: The Interreg Europe COVID-19 platform provides access to:

• Good practices from across Europe that can help you mitigate the pandemic's effects
• Online thematic activities to inspire and help you find solutions to common challenges (peer reviews, online discussions, webinars)
• Tailored support from the thematic experts of the Policy Learning Platform (Policy helpdesk)
• Related news and events published by the team of experts, Interreg Europe projects and other institutions

EURADA: The COVID-19 – EURADA platform focuses on economic responses to the pandemic and has collected an impressive list of good practices presented by European Regional Economic Development Agencies as wells as initiatives from European Union institutions, such as  the State Aid Temporary Framework or the schemes from the European Investment Bank.    

European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP): The ECCP, as part of Europe’s programme for small and medium enterprises (COSME), has created a new website to improve communication of the industrial cluster community.  The  objective is to support the efforts of industrial clusters to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic in Europe.

European Committee of the Regions (CoR): The CoR has set up an online exchange platform to help local and regional authorities fight against the COVID-19 crisis by communicating and sharing practice-proven local and regional solutions.

Those platforms represent obviously only a part of the information available and their content is updated continuously, quite often with the active support of the users providing content. It is therefore advisable to check the portals on regular basis and contribute to enriching them by including your own good practices and experiences! Start today by sharing your good practice on the Policy Learning Platform database. 

Image credit: Photo by Polina Tankilevitch from Pexels