Next2Met visits to Austria
Krems an der Donau, Austria – On 17th to 19th May 2022, partners and stakeholders of the Next2Met project met in Krems an der Donau, Austria for a productive study visit and exchange of good practices on digitalisation in the region.
The occasion also marked the last partner meeting of the learning phase (Phase 1) of this Interreg Europe project.
Over the past few months, thanks to improvements in the overall health situation, partners of the Next2Met project have been able to participate in study visits in each other’s regions. The aim of study visits is to provide on-premise opportunities for knowledge exchanges of good practice examples and to promote mutual learning and discussion among partners.
The first of these in the Next2Met project was a visit in Greifswald, Germany on 30 May hosted by the project partner WITENO GmbH. Another visit took place in the province of Barcelona, Spain on 26-27 April. EMRA also had the pleasure to host the partners for a study visit of the Midlands Region on 5-6 April. You can read about what was discussed during each of these visits in the above links.
Highlights from the visit
EMRA joined the other 6 partners and a few stakeholders in the town of Krems, located in a rural area approximately 70 kilometres west of Vienna. Over the course of the 3-day event, participants had the opportunity to learn and talk about ways that Lower Austria is working to support digital transformations to make the region more attractive as a place to live, work and invest, with examples from projects being carried out in the region.
The event started with a detailed discussion of Lower Austria’s Digitalization Strategy, developed and implemented by the regional government, and progress made to date. Among the many topics and project examples covered, participants had the chance to learn about work being done in relation to helping SMEs integrate digital solutions, continuing education, digital education training, digitalisation in tourism, as well as mixed reality (i.e. virtual reality) use to support companies and education/training. EMRA and the partners were also able to gain an understanding of the way universities can support entrepreneurship and innovation.
Next steps
The Next2Met project is in the process of wrapping up the ‘learning and exchange’ portion of the project (called Phase 1). Phase 2 will commence in the coming months and will focus on the partners implementing lessons learned from these exchanges into our own regions.
Stay tuned to hear more about how EMRA and the Next2Met project will be supporting digitalisation measures in the Midlands Region – Ireland’s focus area for the project.
Contact for further information: hstromberg@emra.ie
Read more about the Next2Met project
