The FORESDA project – Forest based cross-sectoral value chains fostering innovation and competitiveness in the Danube Region – was officially launched at the beginning of this week, 6-7th of March 2017, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

On Monday, the consortium had its first internal project meeting, hosted by the Wood Industry Cluster of Slovenia, where important issues related to the project implementation where clarified. Each work package leader presented detailed the content of their work packages, pointing out the main issues which need to be taken into consideration for the successful implementation of the project.

The official kick-off meeting took place on Tuesday, 7th of March, at the Slovenian Forestry Institute. The event was dedicated to a broad audience, and approached a series of interesting topics. The meeting started with the welcome speeches of mr. Igor Milavec, director of CCIS – Wood Processing and Furniture Association, mr. Miha Humar, dean of UL Biotechnical Faculty, mr. Primož Simončič, director of Slovenian Forestry Institute.

Mrs. Tamara Högler – Head of Innovation and International Affairs at CyberForum e.V, lead partner presented the FORESDA project, offering the audience an insight into the activities planned and the main outputs of FORESDA, mainly increasing innovation potential of the traditional wood sector.

The Pannonian Competence Centre for Wood was presented by mrs. Ivana Filipović, director of the centre, which provides different services dedicated to SME's from the wood processing sector in Croatia and nearby in the development of their products.  Since innovation is another important vector, dr. Emilija Stojmenova from the University of Ljubljana talked about a project that enhances rural and urban digital innovation territories through open innovation and socio-economic return on investment processes, ERUDITE, an Interreg Europe project.

Given the fact, that the Foresda consortium has several clusters as members, and clusters are also an important target group of the project, mr. Péter Keller, from the Hungarian Ministry of National Economy presented a successfully implemented Hungarian cluster accreditation system.

The second part of the event, in the afternoon continued with the presentation of the RegioHOLZ – a project of the Regional Development Agency of Northern Black Forest, Germany; presented by mrs. Anja Röllich, scientific officer. The focus of RegioHOLZ is on research, development and technology transfer.

Dr. Andreja Kutnar, from the University of Primorska and InnoRenew CoE, Slovenia talked about a Horizon2020 project, Renewable Materials and Healthy Environments Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence (InnoRenew CoE), the biggest RDI project of Slovenia.  The series of interesting topics was closed by mrs. Simona Rataj, advisor at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, who offered a broad insight into the activities of the CCIS.

The first, successful event of the FORESDA project was concluded by mr. Bernard Likar, from the Wood Industry Cluster of Slovenia, host and moderator.

Further information about the project is available on our website: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/foresda

Pictures about the event are available on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/foresda/ and twitter: https://twitter.com/foresda_eu_dtp