PRESS RELEASE

“FOCUS” 5^th PM&SCM, CAPITALIZATION WORKSHOP and FINAL TRANSNATIONAL AGRI-FOOD CONFERENCE

Date: 9-10 DECEMBER 2019

VENUE: NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS – Multimedia Amphithiater  9 Iroon Polytechneiou, Zografou Campus, 15780,

Athens, GREECE

On December, 9^th and 10^th 2019, in Athens, Greece, the National Technical University of Athens _NTUA, in the framework of the Interreg V-B Balkan Mediterranean programme entitled STRENGTHENING COMPETITIVENESS OF AGRI-FOOD SMES THROUGH TRANSNATIONAL CLUSTERS, pROJECT aCRONYM: FOCUS, is hosting the organisation with the collaboration of the project’s partners of the Fifth project & steering committee meeting, Capitalisation Workshop and the Final Transnational Agri-Food Conference.

On the 9^th of December all the project partners, covering the Balkan-Mediterranean area, are going to participate in the 5^th Project & Steering Committee meeting, which is going to be the final one as the project closure is due to end on the 31^st of January 2020, in order to discuss over the progress of the FOCUS project; remaining deliverables and its outcomes. Upon the second day, the 10^th of December 2019,  in the morning NTUA will be hosting the Capitalisation Workshop aiming to disseminate to its stakeholders and more specifically to its external experts and observers of the project, the Agri-food innovation services mix offered within the project under the operation of the four Regional Agri-food Clusters established in the 4 partners countries in Balkan med area: Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania as well as exchange views and receive comments and suggestions from the experts. The FOCUS Final Transnational Agri-Food Conference is hosted also by NTUA at its premises according to agenda, on the 10^th December 2019, starting at 13:30 until 17:00. The Final Conference is entitled “Innovation challenges in the Agri-food sector”. The main speakers that have been invited represent SMEs from the primary and secondary sector in Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Albania countries. The Final Conference is open to the public, experts, SMEs, academia, policy makers and everyone who is interested in the field of innovation towards the Agri-Food sector. The Conference will be closing with interactive discussion and a networking cocktail.  

Download here:
Workshop Agenda
Conference Agenda

“FOCUS” 4^th PM&SCM, 3^rd  FOCUS GROUP MEETING and TRANSNATIONAL AGRI-FOOD MATCHMAKING FAIR

Date: 15-16 May 2019

Place: Nicosia, CYPRUS

On May, 15^th and 16^th 2019, in Nicosia-Cyprus, the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce & Industry _CCCI, in the framework of FOCUS Balkan-Med project, is organising with the collaboration of the project partners the fourth project & steering committee meeting, the third focus group meeting and the Transnational Agri-Food Matchmaking Fair.

On the 15^th of May all the project partners, covering the Balkan-Mediterranean area, are going to participate in the 4^th Project & Steering Committee meeting in order to discuss over the progress of the FOCUS project and its activities. Late afternoon, in the same day the 3^rd Focus Group is going to take place aiming to enhance the Agri-food innovation services mix offered within the project under the operation of the four Regional Agri-food Clusters established in the 4 partners countries in Balkan med area: Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania as well as exchange views and receive comments and suggestions from the experts. In the morning of the next day the Transnational Agri-Food Matchmaking Fair is going to take place where the four (4) Agri-food regional Clusters and their Regional SMEs which have already expressed their interest for the Clusters and project activities will attend the Fair in order to expand their experiences on agri-food innovation, be engaged more in the offered innovation services, expand their network and participate in business to business meetings. Invitation and the programme of the 2 days

Invitation

Programme

Agricultural University of Plovdiv hosted the First FOCUS Group meeting on the 10th May 2018. Mainly academia was invited to participate from agriculture and food processing fields. Ms Petkova welcomed the participants on behalf of AUP and the consortium of the project. REGBEL gave a de-tail presentation of the objectives and the pro-gress of the project. Ms Petkova provided a set of questions in order to start the discussion. The seminar was held immediately after the 2nd FOCUS Steerıng commıttee meeting. Following discussions from the 2nd FOCUS SC meeting, the consequent questions arose for consideration and further clarification. Among the questions that were discussed was to share their expertise on agri-food cooperation in Bulgaria, what kind of support and ser-vices (labeling, packaging processing etc.) do the local SMEs need, their value-chain, related clusters, sec-tors and SMEs selection, Capacity Building workshops, trends/ needs and technology (innovative practic-es/ideas) to be considered.
Five Bulgarian experts in the field of agrarian sciences and food technologies were invited to take part in the meeting and discussion was held with the FOCUS partners. The Bulgarian experts shared personal ex-perience and observations on the issues identified in advance for discussion.
The dıscussıon maınly expanded through the main hubs of the three sectors in Bulgaria (dairy, oil-producing industry, and wine) that ıt could be positioned in Plovdiv. Another suggestıon was of the estab-lishing of a “Clean food” Cluster. Equal ımportant was the fact that thıs can be achieved (i.e., ingredients, processes, packaging, distribution) and must take ınto consıderatıon the structures/functions/mechanisms. The coordınator of the 1st Focus group Mrs Mariana Petkova – Asis. Prof. of Microbiology and Environmen-tal Biotechnology, AUP, she proposed a plan to select key players and policies to build an ex-ample cluster in the dairy industry. Dr. Sofia Karma, from the NTUA presented the strategy for building an internet platform of the project and training tools. Interactıve dıscussıons and valuable opınıons were exchanged.

The 2nd Transnational Steering Committee Meeting held on the 8th to 9th May 2018 in Plovdiv, Bul-garia. The Agriculture University of Plovdiv was the hosting partner, of the 3 days meetings. During the 8th and 9th May the meetings was focus on the 2nd Steering Committee. On the 8th of May an open-ing speech from the Rector of the Agricultural University Prof. Hristina Jancheva took place, followed by the presentations from the AUA of the WP3.1- Mapping & Benchmarking Methodology and then each partners country presented the WP3.2 – Mappıng Agrıfood Clusters ın Balkan Med and WP3.4 – Polıcıes and Regulatory Framework. Upon the 2nd day REGPEL presented WP3.5 Regional agri-food profiles & technologies and followed with academia partners (AUA and NTUA) presentations of WP 4 in relation with Design and operation methodology of FOCUS Clusters, as well as the FOCUS collabora-tion platform. There was an interactive discussion among partners on the first day. Moreover, upon the 2nd day a small workshop in two groups elaborated in order to specify the sectors, needs/ trends, and technology services per county. In the afternoon of the same day, there was a preparatory workshop for the 1st focus group so all partners could provide suggestions.