Documentation Winnet 8 Launching Conference
15-17 Feb 2010, Tällberg, Sweden
Notes by: Malin Lindberg, Luleå University of Technology, malin.lindberg@ltu.se
Monday 15 Feb
Carin Nises welcomed everyone to the conference.
Maria Norrfalk, Governor of Dalarna, hoped that women’s opportunities on the labour market will be improved by the WINNET 8 project. The nature in Dalarna is welcoming all year round and everyone can walk around freely thanks to ‘allemansrätten’. There are over 200 nature reserves and 1000 lakes in the region. The small villages with their red small houses provide a rich culture in Dalarna. The traditions are kept and celebrated in these villages, especially the music (not only folk music, also pop and rock). The dala horse is a symbol for Dalarna and Sweden. The forest and steel industries mean a lot to the region, exporting its products to Europe and the rest of the world. But there are also several other industries contributing to the economy in Dalarna, which is a region with many SME’s.
Herbert Halvarsson, Municipal Commissioner of Älvdalen, hoped that WINNET 8 will be able to have a meeting in Älvdalen during the project time, even if it is somewhat more difficult to reach than Tällberg. The municipality of Älvdalen hosts Sweden’s southernmost mountain area.
A panel discussion was held with Marie Olsson, Municipal Commissioner Orsa, Carola Gunnarsson, Municipal Commissioner Sala and vice chairwoman Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, Tony Meurke, Swedish Agency for Regional and Economic Growth and Malin Lindberg, Luleå University of Technology. Britt-Marie Torstensson, NRC (The Swedish National Federation of Women Resource Center), posed questions to the panel about the prospects of creating action plans for WRC participation in the Regional Operational Program (ROP) within WINNET 8. The politicians clearly answered yes, based on their experiences from promotion of women’s entrepreneurship and innovation through WRC’s. The civil servant was hopeful due to the impressing constellation of experienced partners from eight countries in WINNET 8. The researcher was hopeful as well, since the internationalisation of the WRC model has a long tradition via the earlier WINNET and FEM projects www.feminfo.net www.winneteurope.eu.
The overall project and activities in WINNET 8 were presented focusing the three components that constitute the project:
→ Carin Nises and Karin Ljudén presented Component 1 (Management and coordination). The information were also made available on USB sticks. The first report from the partners is to be submitted in August. Partners are continuously updated about the Progress Report on the website www.interreg4c.eu. The Joint Technical Secretary (JTS) is situated in Lille.
→ Britt-Marie Torstensson, NRC, presented Component 2 (Communication and dissemination). NRC will be responsible for the communication and dissemination. NRC will be assisted by Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and The Swedish Agency for Regional and Economic Growth. Dissemination will be an integrated part of all WRC’s activities. Press releases, press conferences, seminars, websites are some of the dissemination methods. A joint logotype and information package with brochure and leaflets in 8 language will be developed. Four round tables with policy makers will be arranged. Newsletters will be distributed regularly. A final policy document will be presented at the closing conference in Greece. A handbook with 100 selected good practices will be published. NRC will there to subcontract researchers in WINNET 8 and co-operate with Component 3 responsible within this issue of research.
→ Pia Kattelus, Ruralia Institute, presented Component 3 (Exchange of experiences). Identify, share and highlight good practices for strategies and actions, WRC models and tools are crucial in Component 3. Quadruple Helix formations are the target groups of this component. Organisational learning, innovation processes and gender equality are three main approaches to be employed. Dialog conferences, workshops and roundtables will be arranged in order to initiate discussions. Multi-Actor-Groups (MAG’s) will be formed and The Ruralia Institute will arrange six meetings with these groups. They will analyse practices from other regions in the light of policies. Each MAG will work in accordance to their own styles. Interregional training is the second activity of Component 3. This training will be organised for the process coaches of MAG’s increasing their intervention skills. Next autumn nine study visits will be made with 40 participants. Three workshops will be organised during the project and the themes are still open so make suggestions! There will also be a research workshop. Draft activity plans for the MAG’s are to be sent to The Ruralia Institute by mid-March.
At the final conference 9 action plans for the implantation of WRC s in ROP 2014, based on the result of project will be presented.
All countries except Italy have nominated representatives to the WINNET 8 Steering Group. These are Popi from Greece, Leslie from Scotland, Pia from Finland, Diana from Bulgaria, Marta from Poland and Marco from Portugal, Monica Jönsson and Britt-Marie Torstensson from Sweden.
Tuesday 16 Feb
The day started with a round of comments and questions among the participants. Someone wanted to know more about what is to be done in Component 3. Someone else wanted to know more about the different participating countries and the partners involved. The process coaching was another issue that a participant wanted to be clarified. How to think about MAG’s was another question brought up. It is important to take care of the financial coordinator, that has a very tough job. More info about the budget and the economic procedures of WINNET 8 was another request. Yet another question was how the other countries have imposed gender equality in policy. Experiences of programs with focus on women’s entrepreneurship were an additional request. More info about what each partner is supposed to do was requested. Which are the concrete steps in all the components, someone asked. A list of participants with organization affiliations, e-mail and postal addresses would be good to have. Which partners have been involved in FEM and WINNET and which haven’t should be clarified. It is important to have a lot of discussions between the participants during the conference in Tällberg, in order to clarify the practices in the regional and national groups.
Britt-Marie Torstensson, NRC, reminded the participants of the success that WINNET 8 was selected as a capitalisation project by the European commission, even though it was not selected as a Fast Track project to be especially reviewed by the commission. Thus we have the most important task to impact our national policies, but also EU policy.
Bulgaria
Plovdid is an European ancient and modern town, situated in the middle of Bulgaria. The priority is to achieve a dynamic knowledge economy. In WINNET 8 it is important to develop a policy for equal opportunity and labour market accessibility to all social groups. Support to entrepreneurship and start of small business implementation in order to stimulate the economic activity of women. One type of project being supported is education of adults, women and youth. Bringing Reconciliation In Employment and Family through Care Services (BRIEFCASE) is one of the projects being carried out. Gender Mainstreaming in Municipalities is another project. The main obstacle is that many politicians in Bulgaria thinks that gender issues are not as severe as other problems in the country.
Sweden
Saga is the regional resource centre of the county of Gävleborg. Saga is a women’s cooperative founded in 1998. Pirkko Jonsson is the chairman of Saga, which is a project organization running and participating in several projects. Saga works closely together with the academy, the region, the county and the job centre. Saga will contribute with their methods and models for WRC in WINNET 8, e.g. from the projects RuTa Fem (meeting places for regional growth), SGA (labour market) and GurX (young people’s influence). The region of Gävleborg is trying to make a change in the regional industrial structure from steel and forest industries to more “soft” branches like tourism and women’s entrepreneurship. Currently the region is applying to UN in order to make the farm houses of Hälsingland into a Regional Heritage. The regional development council of Gävleborg consist of the ten municipalities of Gävleborg. The council was founded in 2007 and is in charge of implementing sustainable regional development. The council develops and realizes plans for regional development. In the most recent regional development program the prioritized areas are: The good journey, Leadership for cooperation, The green lung of Sweden, The attractive region, Develop and learn, Dynamic business climate. Both gender mainstreaming and positive action for women are needed in order to achieve gender equality in the region. ICT, Steel/engineering and ICT are three of the main business areas in the region. Tourism and health care are two other areas being focused.
The Regional Cooperation Council of Dalarna is working with growth and employment. Some of the gender issues in Dalarna are the gender segregated labour market, that many women work part-time. This constitutes an obstacle for economic growth and regional development. W7 Dalarna is a resource centre for women in the north West of Dalarna. It comprises seven municipalities: Älvdalen, Mora, Orsa, Rättvik, Leksand, Malung and Vansbro. Each local resource centre is closely linked to the municipalities. W7 works with entrepreneurship among women and men.
The Swedish Agency for Regional and Economic Growth (TVV) is a recently established public authority, which earlier was named Nutek. The agency has eleven offices throughout Sweden and manages about 60 programs. The vision is to create a model for entrepreneurship with sustainable growth through pro-active actions. Lack of own time and public regulations are two of the most common challenges to Swedish entrepreneurs and TVV works to facilitate for new and becoming entrepreneurs. TVV specifically enhances women’s entrepreneurship. The programme has a total funding of SEK 82 millions in 2009. Now there are 880 ambassadors for women’s entrepreneurship around the country, thanks to TVV. These ambassadors lecture about women’s entrepreneurship in schools and other organizations for free. TVV also runs a program for funding of WRC’s, in order to increase women’s influence in regional development policy. Local and regional resource centres all over Sweden runs projects about e.g. culture as a factor for growth (Lika Villkor/Equal Terms). The ongoing evaluation of the WRC program is available for the participants of the conference in Tällberg.
Finland
The Ruralia Institute is a part of the University of Helsinki, but is located in Mikkeli and Seinäjoki in South Ostrobothnia. It was founded in 1988. South Ostrobothnia is ‘a region of entrepreneurship’ with 12 000 companies. Food, Metal/Technology, and Wood are the three main clusters of the region. To achieve a creative region is one of the visions maintained in the regional plan of South Ostrobothnia. A desire to find solutions is one of the values that The Ruralia Institute relies on. Three fields of expertise are organic food production, rural development and entrepreneurship/co-operation. Research, education and development projects are three of the activities being carried out by The Ruralia Institute. Since 1995 the institute has been involved in European projects.
Poland
The municipality of Lebork is a partner in WINNET 8 and was earlier a partner in the FEM project. FEM was carried out 2004-2007 and five WRC’s were established in Poland, enhancing women’s entrepreneurship and employment. These WRC’s are still working and are to be further developed by WINNET 8. The municipality of Lebork’s experience of Interreg projects is extensive. Cooperation is carried out with the Labour Office and training institutions. The municipality will organize two national seminars with Polish partners. The University of Szczecin is a partner of WINNET 8 and is situated in the north west of Poland. It was a partner in the FEM project. The university has the capacity to influence local and regional policies. The contact person for WINNET 8 in the University of Szczecin is Marta Hozer-Kocmiel, who regrets not being able to attend the conference in Tällberg.
Scotland
The Scottish situation is characterized by gender poverty, gender pay gap, welfare to work reform, access to childcare, occupational segregation, and loss of women only services. The Edinburgh chamber of commerce was founded in 1786 and has more than 2000 members. It provides enterprises with support services. The tools used are business gateway, business incubators, business training, mentoring, employability training, European projects. Special ‘inclusion’ support to youth enterprise, ethnic enterprise, senior enterprise and social enterprise. Yet there is no special support to women enterprise. In WINNET 8, the chamber of commerce will influence policy makers at local and national level and make practical changes to improve support for women’s entrepreneurs. ‘Women Onto Work’ (WOW) is a program that raises women’s employability by means of education, training and employment. The program helps women to improve their self esteem and job seeking skills. The program offers a support package with free childcare, training allowance and career guidance. In WINNET 8, the chamber will work with partnership with Scottish Government, Local Authorities and other statutory agencies. It will thereby develop policies and subsequent services, and share aspects of their good practice including the WOW model. Thus they want to address gender equality of access to ICT and entrepreneurship.
Greece
Ergani is a centre for the support of women’s employment and entrepreneurship founded in 1991. It is situated in the region of West Macedonia, where the natural resources are mines and power generation plants. Local products are marbles, wine, saffron, fruits and furs which generate tourism. There are many women cooperatives. Since 2001, the Ergani centre is organized as an NGO. The partnership of Ergani consists of university, municipality, exporter’s association and the network of women entrepreneurs. The aim of the centre is to promote women’s entrepreneurship and increase female employability. The tools used are e.g. individual and group counselling, computer training courses, vocational training programs and connection to the labour market.
Portugal
Alentejo is situated in the southern part of Portugal. It has a high standard of environment and the inhabitant density is only 19 persons per km2. The national average standards of education are not reached in Alentejo. There is a university in the region. Solar energy is a energy source of growing importance. Alentejo comes 1st in the national productivity rankings. Agriculture and fishing are the most important economic sectors, followed by industrial production and services. Portugal does not have a specific approach to gender issue yet, though there are gender problems in the country. There is a local program supporting women’s entrepreneurship. The distribution of women and men as entrepreneurs in Portugal is fairly equal. In Alentejo the balance is more skewed, though.
Gender equality in Regional Cohesion Policy – WRC’s, Labour market and Innovation
Britt-Marie Torstensson emphasized that NRC and WINNET Europe have made extensive contributions to the development of WINNET 8. Also W7 has contributed via their membership in NRC. The political level is important in WINNET 8, aiming to affect the policies from 2013 and forward. The gender divided labour market and innovation are the two main areas of WINNET 8, not women’s entrepreneurship in it self. This is important since men dominated industries are receiving most of the public funding of innovation systems and clusters. The Swedish National Federation of Women Resource Centre (NRC) was established in Sweden 1999 and celebrated their ten year anniversary 16 December, last year. They have worked to keep the public funding of WRC’s. The basis for the work of NRC ( an umbrella organisation for WRC s) is the membership of 160 local of which 19 is regional WRC’s in Sweden. NRC has an alliance with The Swedish Agency for Regional and Economic Growth (TVV). Transnational cooperation is a crucial part of the work of NRC. In 1998, the first step toward an internationalisation of WRC’s was taken within the project ENREC, funded by EU program RECITE II. In 2003, this process was developed further in the project W.IN.NET, funded by the EU program INTERREG IIIC. The first W.IN.NET Internet portal was thus established. In 2006 the European association WINNET Europe was founded with 600 WRC’s all around Europe. 400 of these WRC’s still exist. The mission of NRC and WINNET Europe is to increase women’s influence on the labour market and the society and to participate in opinion making. NRC and WINNET develop women’s project, exclusively for and by women. To integrate gender equality in regional and local development is yet another mission. The general definition of WRC is that it is supported by the authorities at regional and local level, is open to every woman in the region and is a meeting place for women. The function of a WRC is to empower women to participate on their own basis of regional and local needs and conditions. The WRC’s also support and counsel women to set up their own businesses. The function of WINNET Europe is to participate in EU programs and transnational projects 2007-2013. To increase women’s participation in ‘new technology’, innovation, clusters and research is one of the aims of WINNET Europe. Networking is the main method of WINNET Europe, together with empowerment. WRC is an actor for economic growth and jobs in EU.
Clarifications about the MAG’s
The MAG’s should include the quadruple helix with partners from managing authorities, local and regional policymakers; from WRC’s and other civil society organizations; the business community and the research community. There is a budget in WINNET 8 for the participation of these actors.