Ida Prosperi of SVIM, one of the winners from last edition’s EURADA Awards, moderated the ceremony. She presented the winners and gave the floor or this time, the screen, to them. 

Mario Celan, Director of SIMORA, Development Agency of Sisak-Moslavina county (Croatia) gave the acceptance speech on behalf of the organisation as they were awarded Best Development Agency of 2021. Their RDA brought innovation to the gaming industry with their candidature “Becoming a gaming expert - capacities upskilling”. The goal of their winning best practice was to create a system for developing the region through educating and employing young people in computer game development. Support has been given to these young people through English lessons, gaming, and formal education at all levels. This project helped change the county into a center for the gaming industry in the region and the entire nation. Their objective is to become the main European gaming center.  

In this edition of the awards, the jury decided to give special recognition to 3 RDAs who have proven their commitment to excellence. The first one was awarded to INFO - Instituto de Fomento de la Región de Murcia (Spain) for their project “inDemand: Together for better health”. Joaquín Gómez, Director of INFO accepted the award. He noted that this award was a recognition of the hard work INFO has carried out over a long period with their partners from Finland and France. He stated that cooperation was the key and that working with companies in developing products in the field of health has been very rewarding.  He concluded that their project aims to be useful and effective for all regions and countries. Those working in the health sector must respond to the real needs and innovation.  

The effort of CEIN -  Centro Europeo de Empresas e Innovación de Navarra (Spain) was recognized in the same category with their practice "Itinerary of health entrepreneurship at CEIN". Mikel Irujo, Regional Minister of Economic Development and Entrepreneurship from the Government of Navarra began his speech by reminding us that this was not the first time Navarra had received an award, as they had a winning initiative in the 2017 edition.  This year, their candidature was in the field of health, which is something especially important given the current circumstances. Health is one of the priority economic areas in Navarra’s region, their practice supports and helps to detect entrepreneurial talents and launch new innovative business activities. This project was successful thanks to the coordination between governments, academia, and all other stakeholders. The potential for transferring this model to other regions is extremely high as health is a crucial sector in any territory. 

The third special mention was awarded to ZAFER Development Agency (Kütahya, Turkey) for their practice, “ZAFER-INOperation: Improving the Adaptability of Employers and Employees in TR33 Region”. Veli Oğuz, Secretary General of Zafer Development Agency, explained that their project is focused on increasing the adaptability of employees and employers as regards SMEs by promoting training and special learning actions with the purpose of accelerating regional development, ensuring sustainability, and increasing cooperation between the public and private sector. In order to ensure the sustainability of the operation, he clarified that ZAFER has provided training and consultancy on the technical assistance program to adapt to the changing conditions. He concluded that the operation has made a significant contribution in terms of increasing competitiveness and adaptability in the region. 

Following the acceptance speeches, a Round Table with comments from representatives of Associations of Development Agencies was organized. We had the honour of welcoming Jaakko Helenius, Director of the Association of Finnish Development Companies (SEKES), Nenad Popovic, President of the Serbian Association of Regional Development Agencies (SARRA), and Beatriz Casado, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department of the Business Competitiveness Institute of Castilla y León (ICE) and Representative of the Spanish Forum of Regional Development Agencies (ForoADR) and Gérard Lombardi, responsible for Expertise Management of the French Federation of Investment and Economic Development Agencies (CNER). They presented their associations and talked about the best practices carried out by development agencies in their region. 

Afterwards, our Vice President Bogdan Chelariu from ADR Nord East (Romania) wrapped up and concluded our event. 

Thank you to all that participated and congratulations to the winners from EURADA’s team!