We are planning a webinar with DG REGIO. We have a vision: use EU regional policies to experiment with different economic models. The webinar is a place where we present it to regions, and surface the ones who are most inclined to work with us to try to realize it. It’s a bit of a moonshot, and so fits well under the heading of the Sci-Fi Economics Lab.
The webinar will probably revolve around innovation in cohesion policy (are we taking enough risks?) and citizen engagement (are we engaging the right people? The usual Edgeryders argument will be made: changemakers are there – Messina, CIC, etc. etc., and they tend not to engage, which is a mistake).
The state of play as 2020 ends is this:
- The DG REGIO Unit on Citizen Engagement and Administrative capacity building is our co-convener.
- The EU Cohesion Policy Academic Network agreed to make it one of their 2021 seminars and co-design it with us.
- The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions, involved by REGIO, agreed to participate.
- The Limburg Region (NL) is also very interested and has been trying to mobilize funds, though they were unable to do so by the end of the year.
- Climate-KIC is putting together a KAVA for the Long-Termism Deep Demo in 2021. They can co-fund 20% of projects (if we raise 80%).
@nadia and I discussed it and decided to go ahead with the webinar as a sales channel. We will try to get both the Dutch and REGIO to put a little money on the table, but will go ahead anyway.
Tentative date for the webinar is March 29th.
Nadia, is that all correct? Can I proceed with the email? Also ping @IvanC