Commissie wil zichtbaarheid resultaten regionaal beleid op nieuwe manieren vergroten (en)

811 participants from 28 Member states came together in Brussels earlier this week to discuss how to better communicate the ESI Funds. The conference aimed to debate how to better tell the story of Europe, boost collaboration between EU, national and regional officials involved in communicating about ESIFs, provide a sound basis for the communication strategies that will accompany ESI Funds programmes during the 2014-2020 funding period, and share good practices in communication and facilitate mutual learning between different countries and funds.

The event brought together communication officers from national and regional authorities, heads of managing authorities, journalists, EU networks like Europe Direct, and colleagues from EU institutions. This conference was innovative in three ways:

• 1) 

  for the first time a communication conference about EU funds was jointly organised by 4 Commission departments: the Directorates-General for Regional and Urban policy; Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion; Agriculture and Rural Development; and Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

• 2) 

  participatory methods were used in most of the 24 workshops to make the discussions interactive and relevant to the participants’ needs and;

• 3) 

  visual harvesting maps were prepared to capture the essence of the debates in an intuitive way.

Photos, videos, social media highlights and the presentations are available on the conference website. A visual summary of the conference will be published early next week.