Joint Annual Conference and General Assemblies 2008

The Joint Annual Conference and General Assemblies 2008 was held 11-13 June in Herning, Denmark. More than 400 participants registered for the three day event and took part in the different sessions of the conference.

A Sustainable Future
“Towards a Sustainable Future” was the theme of the conference and the event focussed on different aspects of the Lisbon and Gothenburg Agendas in relation to regional development in the EU and beyond. The event was arranged in a climate neutral fashion.

Annual Conference 2008  Programme

Videos online
5 minute videos with summaries and comments from of each day of the conference can be found here.

Plenary Session
The plenary of the first day featured speeches from Tony Berkeley and Oliver Schaefer, Chairman Rail Freight Group and Advisor to the President of the European Wind Energy Association, as well as Colin Wolfe, Head of Unit, European Commission.

Plenary Presentations
• Oliver Schaefer
• Tony Berkeley
• Colin Wolfe

Seminar Sessions
The seminar sessions addressed issues of particular concern within each of the four priorities of the Programme. There were presentations from experts and the Programme priority fields.

The idea was to generate a better understanding of how projects can maximise their contribution towards the priority in question and the IVB programme requirements.

A more detailed summary of the seminars will be made available online shortly.

Presentations from the seminars
Seminar 1 – Innovation
Seminar 1 – Innovation Walter Leal
Seminar 1 – Innovation Lynn Martin
Seminar 2 - Introduction
Seminar 3 – Pim Bonne
Seminar 3 -  Hedwig Verron
Seminar 3 - Introduction
Seminar 3 – Transport Reflections
Seminar 4 – Sustainable Communities
Seminar 4 – Sustainable Communities Antje Matern
Seminar 4 – Sustainable Communities MP 4

Parallel Sessions
The afternoon featured a number of drop-in seminars in parallel with a well visited partner search forum, during which well over 40 meetings between potential project partners took place and project ideas were promoted and developed further.

Presentations, Drop-In Seminars
• Project Development – New Programme New Requirements
• Finance – State aid and private sector beneficiaries, partnership contracts and reporting and 1st level control
• Communications – Sustainability in Communications

Partner Search Forum
To promote the development of project ideas was one of the main aims of the Annual Conference. More than 50 project developers made use of the opportunity to meet potential project partners for future cooperation and almost 90 face to face meetings took place during the event bringing together highly motivated project developers.

To download the Project Idea Book and for more information about how to request a project meeting at the Partner Search Forum, go to the news section of the website, here.