Brussels: The Second INFORM Network Meeting

On November 26th and 27th in Brussels, the “INFORM” meeting was held on the activities of information and publicity concerning the intervention which are co-financed by the Structural Funds and promoted by the Direction General for Regional policy of the European Commission. The aim was to encourage the sharing of experiences between the 27 EU Member States.
During the morning session on November 26th, the core group members, together with all the directors for Information and Publicity at national level, gathered and dealt with cooperation and open days with the representatives from the Commission in each single Member State. They outlined the results of the policies in the sphere of the debate on budget, the proposals for rendering the list of beneficiary more attractive and interactive for European citizens as well as cooperation between networks. In the afternoon session on the same day and during the whole day on November 27th, the meeting was opened to the members of the voluntary group who submitted some good examples of communication as well as presented the evaluation report which was elaborated by Technopolis Group on behalf of DG Regio. The survey was based on the examination of the new Commission regulations 1828/2006, the interviews to the directors of information and communication actions of the Structural Fund Operational Programmes, the examination of 69 samples of Operational Programmes Communication Plans of the Member States and 15 cross-border programmes.
Some of the goals pursued with the following survey have been the following: communication plans must be as adaptable and flexible as possible and clearly identify the target groups to be reached; it is necessary to establish pro-active liaisons with the media; it is of great importance to focus on internal communcation; it is adviced to use innovative tools, such as interactive websites. Furthermore, it resulted that the activities which raise the greatest success are those aimed at fulfilling the regional demand within a regional context.
The following day was dedicated to the presentation of best practices on modern technologies and the positive results with regard to ad-hoc programmes. Subsequently, a debate on the topics to be dealt with in the next online meeting was held. In the afternoon session, work groups were organized with a focus on the following themes: drafting a guide on communication edited by DG REGIO and the INFORM group; communication in programmes of European territorial cooperation: practical aspects of communicators’ work. A Formez expert took part  in the work group on the drafting of the guidelines for which she intends to draft some of the chapters.
The day concluded with the outlining of some of the results achieved by these groups.