On February 25, 2008, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument announced opening of the 1^st Call for Proposals for the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007 – 2013. In order to encourage participants from Belarus to submit their project ideas, Joint Technical Secretariat of the Baltic Sea Region Programme held an information seminar that featured representatives of Belarusian authorities, enterprises, governmental and non-governmental organisations. The seminar was supposed to raise awareness of Belarusian actors and inform them about opportunities for participation in the programme.

 

Agenda for the seminar included brief presentation of the Baltic Sea Region Programme, its guidelines and priorities, as well as information on cross-border cooperation projects and opportunities for Belarusian actors. Further panels focused on technical characteristics of the Baltic Sea Region project proposals, certain aspects of project management and partner search.

 

Organisers of the seminar not only provided participants with general information, but also gave them some practical advice on the application procedure – for example, how to fill in application forms and what additional documents should be submitted together with project proposals. Moreover, experts of the Joint Technical Secretariat presented a number of project ideas developed by European stakeholders who are looking for Belarusian partners. But even more useful was experience gained during informal coffee-breaks: participants of the seminar got an opportunity to establish business contacts, share their ideas with experts from various fields and even find potential partners for their project ideas. In particular, representatives of IURI INTERACTION, IURI Brest and IURI Gomel, also present at the seminar, offered Belarusian organisations, authorities and enterprises their professional support in development and realisation of European projects.

 

In such a way, the seminar proved to be an extremely useful capacity building event and a detailed step-by-step manual for Belarusian authorities, enterprises, governmental and non-governmental organisations with little or no experience in project management and grant application.