Newsletter N°1 – SEPTEMBER 2013
In this issue: •
GRASP kick off meeting in Spata, Greece
•
Affiliations with other projects
•
2nd GRASP Transnational meeting in Potenza, Basilicata, Italy
•
Green Public Procurement (GPP)
•
Green Procurement and Smart City Support in the Energy Sector
GRASP Kick Off Meeting in Spata, Greece GRASP kick off meeting took place in Municipality of Spata Artemis (Athens, Greece) on 22-24 May 2013. The meeting was intended to serve as a formal introduction to the main project issues, including a workshop to discuss methodology, technical details and work progress.
Events: MED Capitalization Conference In 2013, the capitalization activities will follow the main objective to open an insight for the future programming period. Analysis of projects’ experiences and practices as well as ad hoc consultations will be carried out in order to capitalize experiences and collect opinions of key stakeholders. In this perspective, capitalization will be one of the key topics of the next 2013 MED Annual Conference (Lisbon, autumn 2013). More at: www.programmemed.eu/en/theprogramme/programme-capitalization.html
European Cooperation Day – September 10, 2013: Sharing borders, growing closer. The second European Cooperation Day will be officially opened on 10th September 2013 during the Kick Off celebration in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The campaign is coordinated by the INTERACT Programme, with the support of European Commission, the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions. More at: www.ecday.eu
The main objectives of the meeting were: • Discussion on project objectives, scope, methodology, workplan and deliverables • Discussion on dissemination and promotion of project results • Detailed presentation and organising of the project activities • Reaching agreement on short and medium term activities • Overview of progress made since the beginning of the project • Establishment of GRASP Committees and their role within the project
GRASP Project Partners: University of Patras, Greece http://www.upatras.gr
2nd GRASP Transnational meeting in Potenza, Italy GRASP 2nd transnational meeting was held in Potenza, Basilicata, Italy on 5-7 September 2013. The meeting was broken into two sessions, morning and afternoon. The morning sessions were dedicated to the project components, presentation of progress and deliverables achieved so far, and organising of next steps.
Province of Perugia, Italy
http://www.provincia.perugia.it
Ins6tute for Research & Improvement in Social Sciences, Malta http://www.researchsocialsciences.org
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Terrassa, Spain http://www.cambraterrassa.es
Mountain Community Alto Basento (Program Area Basento, Bradano, Camastra), Italy
During the afternoon sessions, the 1st workshop took place, aiming to raise awareness and exchange of knowledge regarding energy efficiency, renewable energy sources and applied e-procurement methods. With regard to this, expert guests from the public and private sectors were invited by the host partner, in order to inform us about the regional (Potenza and Basilicata in general) current progress in the field of energy, and raise the main relevant issues.
http://www.areaprogrammabasento.it
GRASP Progress Municipality of Spata-‐ Artemis, Greece
http://spata-artemis.gr/
Provincial Agency for Energy, Environment, and Sustainable development (APEA) Siena, Italy http://www.apea.siena.it
The project started during the 2nd quarter of 2013. So far we have prepared a communication plan, a logo, a brochure translated in all partners' national languages, and an enewsletter. We have a website, “www.grasp-med.eu,” 3 domains, a LinkedIn Profile as well as a Society Profile. We have developed the first users’ questionnaires, to be distributed to SMEs and Public agencies for collecting information on technical / non-technical barriers and achievements by stakeholder type. The answers from the questionnaires will be used in future project developments. We have prepared an evaluation questionnaire, to be used during the project events (seminars, workshops and conferences). We participated in regional meetings and in a Green Energy Conference, prepared a newsletter and a press release, presented GRASP in local/regional media
ATLANTIS Consul6ng, Cyprus
www.atlantis-consulting.eu
Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Naviga6on of Castellon, Spain
http://www.camaracastellon.com
and in WEB Sites, and during a training session on energy efficiency. The GRASP kick-off meeting was also attended by other projects representatives, aiming at future cooperation. In order to approach other projects in a more organised and efficient way, we are preparing a template that will provide information about GRASP and its objectives, and will ask for supplementary information from other projects aiming at synergies.
Affiliations with other projects
Inter-‐District Associa6on of Electrifica6on and Ligh6ng of Haute-‐Corse (SIEEP), France
GRASP has already established affiliations with other international funded projects working in field of transnational cooperation programmes, with the objective of exchanging experience and results and cross-fertilizing knowledge of common interest.
Municipality of PileaHortiatis, Greece http://www.pilea-hortiatis.gr
ECOFUNDING (MED programme) Designed to create new investment spaces that favor green SMEs. The main objective of the project is to create a comprehensive platform of financial resources that link investors and entrepreneurs, and include all financial engineering mechanisms on which the EU is betting. It also provides with innovative solutions to financing venture capital, private investment, and supports the creation of public-private cooperation structures.
University of Vlora “Ismail Qemali”, Albania http://www.univlora.edu.al
City Development Agency East Sarajevo (RAIS ), Bosnia & Herzegovina http://www.rais.rs.ba
REPUBLIC-MED (MED programme) Aims at developing and promoting a new methodology for improving technoeconomic studies for the refurbishment of public buildings and open/public spaces. Inefficiencies of current national methods applied for retrofitting will be identified and a joint methodology to overcome them will be proposed. The approach includes experimentation through pilot studies in various typologies of public spaces. REMIDA (MED programme) Intends to test and implement new schemes of privatepublic-people partnerships (PPPPs), to encourage the demand for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy solutions as well as the development of smart energy communities. To achieve these objectives, REMIDA will identify methods and strategies, and exchange experiences on smart cities, build capacities on the EE and RES theme, and develop transnational pilot activities.
Green Public Procurement (GPP)
GRASP WEB Site: http://www.grasp-med.eu
Green Public Procurement (GPP) is a process where public authorities seek to procure goods and services with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life-cycle.
GRASP project: Green Procurement and Smart City Support in the Energy Sector
GRASP Social Networks: twi%er.com/GraspMed
www.facebook.com/graspMed
www.linkedin.com/in/graspmed www.linkedin.com/company/graspmed
GRASP is a project funded by the MED programme, within Axe-2 “Protection of the environment and promotion of a sustainable territorial development” and objective 2.2 “Promotion of renewable energy and improvement of energy efficiency”. The main goal of the project is to strengthen the capacity of local and regional authorities to use and set green quality requirements for GPP. Towards this goal, specific objectives have been set: • Support GPP processes in the wider MED region, with emphasis on energy (e.g. renewable sources and "green" materials). •
Setup a Transnational Mediterranean Network of public and private operators in GPP.
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Design and implement a new smart and green eProcurement online service.
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Develop Action Plans for e-Procurement follow-up actions and future initiatives in participating regions and countries.
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Share expertise and best practices amongst the authorities in the project, and support activities of wider information dissemination to stakeholders (incl. policymakers and SMEs).
GRASP brings together 13 organisations from 6 MED (Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Cyprus, Malta) and 2 IPA countries (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina), guaranteeing representation of varied socio-economic and public sector characteristics, and ensuring more complete, sustainable and transferable final results.