In June 2018, the project MATCH-UP started within the Interreg Europe programme. The County of Northeim is the German partner in this project. Since the beginning of 2017 aconium has successfully accompanied and supported Northeim in their efforts to become involved in EU-funded project cooperation. With the participation in Interreg projects, the County of Northeim aims to find common solutions through cooperating with other regions that face similar challenges concerning “mobility in rural areas”. The MATCH-UP project offers the suitable frame for this: until 2022, five partner institutions from Italy, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Romania will jointly work on the evaluation and optimization of existing approaches, pilot measures and concepts of multimodal mobility. In the first phase of project implementation, the improvement of the situation in the respective partner regions will be the focus, especially the reduction of motorized private transport and improved connections through multimodality. Afterwards, the partner regions will integrate the optimized approaches and plans for multimodal mobility into the development of the respective policy instruments for the upcoming structural funds period and develop respecitve action plans.
The MATCH-UP kick-off meeting took place on 4th and 5th July in Bologna. Britta Schmigotzki, project manager at aconium, accompanied three representatives of the County of Northeim as external consultant on the event. On the first day of the meeting, Prof. Simona Tondelli from the host institution, the University of Bologna, welcomed the participating partners, presented the planned project approach as well as the objectives and introduced the University of Bologna as Lead Partner in the project. In a following public event, within specialist lectures, the role of multimodal mobility in the region Emilia-Romagna was addressed.
On the second day the first internal workshop for the partnership was organised. Among other things, the partners presented the selected policy instruments for their regions.
After this successful project kick-off in Bologna, the County of Northeim will begin with the concrete project work. An essential role in this connection plays the regular exchange and the intensive cooperation of the stakeholders in the region. aconium will support the installation of the regional project network and actively accompany its work during the whole project duration.
Titlephoto: Meeting of the project partnership for MATCH-UP on 4th and 5th July 2018 in Bologna.
Photo bottom: Prof. Simona Tondelli explains to the partners the procedure of the planned interregional learning process.
Photocredits: aconium GmbH