ORIGINN Study Visit to Bologna, Emilia-Romagna Region
From the 14th to the 16th of October 2025, the Emilia-Romagna Region hosted the ORIGINN Project Partner Meeting, welcoming partners and stakeholders from across Europe for three days of collaboration, knowledge exchange, and study visits. The event, held in Bologna, highlighted Emilia-Romagna’s leadership in innovation, sustainable food systems, and rural development.
The meeting began on Tuesday, the 14th of October, with an official welcome at the Emilia-Romagna Region headquarters in Bologna, where participants were greeted by regional representatives and introduced to local initiatives in rural development. The morning featured presentations that explored the challenges and importance of blending tradition with innovation. Regional stakeholders presented their initiatives in agri-food, fisheries, and renewable energy, examining how technology is crucial for the sustainability of rural economies. The morning’s presentations were followed by a visit to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma. This study visit provided an in-depth look at Europe’s central role in ensuring food safety and research excellence. The day concluded with a traditional welcome dinner in Bologna, celebrating regional cuisine and fostering informal exchanges among partners.
On Wednesday, 15 October, the project partners travelled to the Po Delta area, exploring the rich environmental and economic landscape of the region. They met with the Mayor of Goro and visited the CO.PE.GO Fishermen Consortium, gaining insight into sustainable fishing practices and local cooperation models. In Comacchio, the partners toured the Manifattura dei Marinati, a historical eel processing facility that had been central to the local fishing sector for generations. Through the efforts of a local cooperative, it has now been restored and developed as a centre of local food heritage, rejuvenating the eel processing sector and developing a tourism offering in the form of a museum, events venue, and annual eel festival. This is a great example of the kinds of good practices in rural transformation that the ORIGINN project highlights. The partner regions learn from each other’s efforts to support and rejuvenate rural economies through innovation and diversification, and this learning informs our regional policies.
The final day, Thursday, the 16th of October, was dedicated to the ORIGINN project workshop during which the partners from Catalonia, Ireland, Sweden, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, and Italy presented our planned policy changes resulting from participating in this project. The meeting concluded with a visit to the DAMA Tecnopolo and HPC Leonardo – Cineca, a European leader in supercomputing and artificial intelligence, demonstrating Emilia-Romagna’s forward-looking commitment to data and digital transformation.
The timing of the visit aligned with World Food Day, which was held on the 16th of October. This is a UN initiative to raise awareness of the importance of global collaboration for a peaceful, sustainable, and food-secure future. The three-day event in Bologna underscored the importance of interregional collaboration in addressing shared challenges across Europe’s rural and innovation ecosystems.
