The past years and nowadays pandemic situation at EU raise the question “How strong or fragile is EU”? The connection to several EU crises undergoing through this period is obvious. The financial crises, economic crises, environmental and migration crises are most often mentioned between the others. In order for EU institutions to uphold their moral responsibility to represent what matters to society, they must make the political choices to build a sustainable European economy. Europe has also to assure the security and protection of its inhabitants. The governments and the institutions of the EU countries often remain locked into short-sighted decision making. The regional leaders no longer have the capacity to make choices that deliver for the needs of its people. However, the economic crisis has demonstrated that this process is not complete and it still has a number of important shortcomings that undermine the stability of the European economy and society as a whole. These imbalances, both globally, and within the EU, have also been often mentioned as one of the important factors at the roots of the crisis itself. Due to this, it is crucial for an effective crisis recovery and the long-term sustainability of the European countries that the effective mechanisms will be put in place to address all of these deficiencies at the same time, in a comprehensive way. The political guidelines for the next, EC 2019-2024 settled the priorities for the upcoming period. One of them is “Overcoming the Crisis: New Ideas, Strategies and Governance Structures for Europe”. The strong emphasis is placed on regional resilience. As the crisis spread and took on new forms, a particular challenge for the EU was to increase the preparedness of countries and its regions to pro-active innovative approaches to crises and their solution. The OECD reviewed local and regional responses to the economic crisis and identified how new forms of leadership and strategic thinking emerged, serving to reinvent and reposition notions of local development policies and practice. The training of key regional players in order to increase their ability to prevent or deal with crises becomes crucial. Crises don't just test our resolve. They can also build our resilience. ReFace project aims to increase of the adaptability of regions and their resilience in order to thrive despite adversity and crises through the key regional stakeholder's knowledge and skills enhancement. ReFace project addresses the need to expand the knowledge base about how regional actions shape the response to major economic, social and environmental challenges. It will be done through: a) Report on resilient regions preparation; b) Syllabus for MOOC “Regions facing shocks: building resilient community” preparation; c) MOOC “Regions facing shocks: building resilient community” preparation; d) MOOC “Regions facing shocks: building resilient community” delivery for 100 participants from 4 countries; e) The road map "Supporting a Resilient Region -a tool for the Sustainable Communities"; f) Raising awareness in the area of resilient regions influence on crises. ReFace project aims at improving knowledge and skills in the area of resilient regions at a system and policy level. The needs of the target group are identified in (a) awareness on appropriate tools, methods and elements of suitable policy making; (b) knowledge of effective policy making and adoption of integrated regional/local policies; (c) capacity in identifying suitable policy making tools, examples, and practices on effective regional policy making. Along with these categories, the short term target groups are positioned at the various levels of governance, i.e. local, regional and national. The primary target groups are public and local administrators, decision-makers and policymakers on regional and community level, and representatives of regional and local authorities. The students of study programs dealing with regional development and public administration are targeted as well. In a broader sense project has an impact on all inhabitants of the regions as they all are strongly affected by the regional vulnerability. The direct impact on target groups will be multiplied: first by involving them in the Report preparation, the target groups will be sensitized directly about the relevance of integrated regional policies for territorial socio-economic development in an EU perspective. Second, the comparative connotation of the project will allow for the immediate and practical exchange of practices among the involved representatives. Third, the direct involvement of the regional policymakers will allow building an informal network among the various authorities involved in the project. The project partnership is diverse and consists of 6 partners from 4 countries (Italy, Slovakia, Spain, France) located in different types of regions. The duration of the project is 24 months.
By the ReFace project implementation the project partners reached the following objectives: * to enhance the knowledge and skills of regional key players in the field of resilient region building * to examine the level of preparedness of regions in project partner countries to prevent crises or overcome them with appropriate measures. The Report on resilient regions based on 4 national reports (IT, ES, FR, SK) was prepared. Identification and forecasts of future skills and training needs in the area of resilient regions building has been carried out. The Report was a fundamental element in the lifetime of the project: it provided the main inputs for the MOOC and its syllabus design and for the Road map development. * to support main target groups along the process of resilient region building: 3 complementary project outputs were developed in EN, piloted, and translated into 4 project countries languages: Italian, French, Spanish, and Slovak. These were − The European Report on Resilient Regions − Massive Open Online Course, MOOC ‘Regions facing shocks: building a resilient community’, and − Road Map ‘Supporting a Resilient Region – tool for the Sustainable Communities’
ReFace project aimed at improving knowledge and skills of regional key players in the area of resilient regions building at both, system and policy level. The project addressed the following needs: *to expand the knowledge base about: how regional actions shape the response to major economic, social and environmental challenges; effective policy making and adoption of integrated regional/local policies *to increase awareness and improve capacity in identifying suitable policy making tools, methods and elements; examples, and practices of effective regional policy making It was reached through the following project outputs: * Report on resilient regions - main input for MOOC * Syllabus for MOOC “Regions facing shocks: building resilient community” * MOOC development and delivery for 112 participants from 4 countries * Road map "Supporting a Resilient Region - a tool for the Sustainable Communities" * Awareness raising activities in the area of resilient regions building and development The primary target groups were public administrators, decision-makers and policymakers at regional and community levels; students of study programs dealing with regional development and public administration were targeted, too.