Education & Research Group

Note of the meeting of the North Sea Commission Education and Research Group

6 November 2002, Beach Palace Hotel, Blankenberge, Belgium

Present

1. Welcome and introductions

The chairman welcomed the group to the meeting and gave a particular welcome to Ted Harris of Aberdeen City Council, attending his first meeting as vice-chairman of the Education and Research Group.

2. Minutes of the last meeting

The chairman asked for the following amendments to item 5, 2.2:

“The chairman emphasised that we are not actively searching for research contacts.”  to be changed to: “The chairman emphasised that we are not at this moment actively searching for research contacts.”

“The North Sea Interreg programme was one of these and happens to have its offices in Viborg.” to be changed to: “The North Sea Interreg programme was one of these and happens to have its offices in Viborg (for practical purposes)”

The minutes of the last meeting to be corrected and re-issued, also corrected on the NSC website.
 Action AB

3. Matters arising

Item 2
- Michaela Störtebecker’s project – this has been withdrawn. 

– The group members’ profile – this would not be pursued for the present as members are not completing it.

- Hans Pol’s status on the group – KGS clarified that the Executive Committee agreed that people could attend thematic groups as observers (no voting rights) if their council or province does not pay for NSC membership. This applies to Hans Pol.   The chairman said that Hans Pol was welcome to attend on that basis.

4. Education and Research Group Annual Report and report from the NSC General Assembly 2002

The Education and Research Group Annual Report was circulated.  It can also be found on the Education and Research pages of the NSC.

KGS reported on the NSC General Assembly, which had been held in Norfolk in June. This year it had been a 4 day event, and a Culture and Tourism seminar was held on the first day, which attracted 80 people. On the second day the North Sea Interreg Directoria had been held, followed by the NSC General Assembly and Business Meeting.  About 30 people attended the first Education and Research Study Tour, which  took place on the third day at Norwich City College and the new Norwich Forum.  400 people attended the event overall.

5. Update on Interreg IIIb

KGS gave an update:  28 projects were sent in to the Interreg Secretariat at the end of September.  2 were ineligible, 21 were submitted and 5 projects are to be re-submitted. The Steering Committee is to meet on 25-26 November in Viborg.  About €52m has been allocated out of €130m in total. The next deadline for submissions is 1 March 2003. Anrita Michel informed the group that the Alfa College project, SME Information Centre, had submitted in September. It was understood that there had been 5 SME/ICT projects all of which were being assessed separately from the other projects.

6. Updates on projects

i. ImproveFlex Lillemor Bjorsell Hedendahl presented this project at Directoria.  This project is about e-learning, ICT and adults, supported by 41 local learning centres. It was felt that the spatial planning element of Interreg caused problems for many projects involving ICT. The group’s attention was drawn to the Spatiol Planning and ICT seminar to be held in Stavanger on 23-24 January.  The chairman told the group that more information was available about this seminar on the NS Interreg website. Each region can recommend about 10 people to attend.

ii. NSEP  Alec Bickerton explained that this project would be launched with an international seminar in Northumberland.  Other regions are invited to send about 30 people.  The audience will include travel organisations, buyers and sellers of tourism and the event will take place over three days including part of a weekend. Visits will take place to key areas and those which are not frequently visited. The event will also feature regional developments in craft, supported by Northumberland County Council.

iii. Multimedia project – no recent information had been supplied about this project.

iv. SME Information Centre  Anrita Michel explained that this project had been submitted to Interreg under the September 2002 call.  10 adult education centres were involved, including in Lincoln (UK), an SME training centre in Belgium, the organising body of SMEs in W Flanders, Denmark (all 10 adult education centres), the Chamber of Commerce in Groningen.

8. The first NSC Education and Research conference - possibilities and planning

Bernard Godding presented a paper which put forward two conference ideas:

a)                      Lessons from Interreg

b)                      Information and Learning technology

After discussion the group felt that Lessons from Interreg was the better of the two suggestions to take forward for the first conference.

It was felt that further dissemination of the outcomes and products of Interreg (or other) projects from the North Sea region could take place through a conference. 

There was also much to gain from investigating the processes which led to a successful project, i.e. what was learned from the project? How were others in the North Sea region attracted to participate? What were the learning outcomes? Was there a life beyond the project, for example one year on from Interreg IIC. The other thematic groups of the NSC should be able to provide some proposals.

The group questioned what happened to all of the project reports. These were produced, but who subsequently used them, and what happened to the evaluation reports of these projects?

Anrita felt that it would be useful for part of the conference to look at how projects contribute to spatial development.

Karen thought that it might be possible to highlight the shared history, culture, heritage of the North Sea so that this could be reflected in the curriculum of schools.  Alec suggested that filming and videos can be used to advantage in projects showing to schools how this arises, and to raise children’s knowledge and awareness of how much they have in common with others around the North Sea.

Ann felt that there is significant potential for resources for schools to be developed around existing or previous North Sea projects.

Action A sub group volunteered to take these discussion forward and formulate a proposal for putting to the next meeting of the Education and Research Group.  This group would meet tomorrow (7 November). (See notes in annex to these meeting notes)

Action AB would discuss the ideas for the Education and Research conference at the meeting of NSC Co-ordinators in Cuxhaven on 11-12 December, and ask for their help in identifying projects and assisting at the conference.

7.  The Education & Research section of the NSC website - what do we want it to do?

The group felt that more information was needed on its projects to be available via the website.  It was felt that the project idea forms used for Directoria could be used.  In addition contacts for each project should be added to the information provided.

 Action AB to update website accordingly.  Group members to provide AB with new information, when it becomes available, for updating the projects section of the website.

It was felt that accurate information on group members should be available on the website.  Action AB to collect updated information via a proforma.

The Culture and Tourism site has a section giving a list of tourism attractions.  It was felt that a list of education institutions should be available linked to existing councils.

8.Future work and patterns of meetings - date of next meeting

It was decided to postpone a discussion of ways of working until the next meeting of the Education and Research Group.  At this meeting the paper from the Environment Group would be used as a starting point for discussion.

Date of next meeting:         

13-14 February in Groningen, starting with lunch at 13:00 on 13 February

November meeting will be held in Aberdeen.