"SCREEN is a project implemented by a group of Regions and targeted to all the European Regions, with a ""bottom-up"" approach, extremely practical, generated where the circular economy actually takes place and where the problems, barriers and research gaps that hinder sustainable development are generated. The continuous comparison between the partners and the adjustments raised from the discussions carried out in the Policy Lab, produced tools that can effectively facilitate the development of a circular economy in the regions.
The project has been developed in four different steps, all related to each other:
The first step dealt with a common procedure for mapping both real and potential value chains in each Region, where the word ""potential"" indicates those chains still having a ""missing ring"". All the SCREEN regions spent noticeable efforts to define a common language and terminology and to use in practice the mapping tool with common procedures, that have been amended several times by following the indications given by the local stakeholders. It should be noticed that the SCREEN partners are regions with extremely different characteristics and therefore the identification of a common methodology is the first success of the project.
The second step was a synergistic approach based on a comparison of the results of the previous one, in order to find common value chains and particularly to find in a certain Region that ""missing ring"" allowing the development in another Region of a value chain still in a potential status. The cooperation between Regions was developed starting from the needs of their economic actors and by adopting a replicable methodology with a ""bottom-up"" approach: its application by other EU regions may strengthen the cohesion policy and actually meet the needs of the European SMEs.
The identification of interregional value chains has as a natural consequence the development of projects with interregional partners needing to be financed with the structural funds of each concerned Region; however, such “common financing” is prevented by administrative barriers. The third step, implemented through the SCREEN "" Policy Lab, analysed the different existing financing instrument and proposed a new methodology of funding synergies for cross-regional projects, agreed by all the 17 participating Regions with a Memorandum of Understanding already signed by 11 Regions (signed documents available at
http://www.screen-lab.eu/step3.html#signed(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) and open to all the other European Regions. The new proposed instrument is also a practical shortcut to define a sort of “Multi-partner Seal of Excellence”, able to pave the way to the future synergic application of funds for cross regional projects dealing with Circular Economy
The fourth SCREEN step was a common agreement on how to assess specific projects dealing with circular economy: the Policy Lab developed an assessing tool to be used in addition of the ones usually adopted by each Region, validated by 164 European stakeholders and then further fine-tuned after a meeting with the DG ENV officers that developed the Circular Economy Monitoring Framework Document .
All the results obtained constitute the ""Methodology for cooperation between Regions"", while all the difficulties and barriers encountered are reported in a “Manual with recommendations for policy makers”; also containing the research gaps detected during the value chains’ identification suggestions to the European Commission for some research topics able to overcome such gaps.
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