Regions4 established its Business and Growth Task Force aimed at helping expand its current operations and projects. The group is open to all members to participate and withdraw at their own interest. Its first meeting was convened in December 2021 and gathered several members committed to its objectives. Lombardia, Catalonia, Jalisco, Quebec, Flanders and Louga, being the first to attend the initiation meeting, all expressed strong support to the Regions4 projected strategic expansion goals. 

The early 2022 first results of this group’s work are already impressive with Flanders, Quebec and Catalonia pledging to earmark more voluntary contributions to the Regions4 Secretariat. These financial resources will support the Regions4 daily operations and strengthen primarily its Climate Change and Biodiversity programs. 

We look forward to more interest and most grateful to our members for their support!

Regions4 is also pleased to announce it won a joint MAIA project funded by the European Commission. MAIA project- Maximizing the impact and synergy of European climate change research and innovation will start in 2022 for a three year period. 

The Regions4 Secretariat will, through this project, support impact and synergy between climate change research and innovation in Europe. In turn, its regional members will improve its overall access to climate change research. The project aims to deliver effective mechanisms to strengthen the science-policy and science-civil society interface in cutting-edge climate change research to increase Europes’s capacity to accelerate the response to the climate crisis, biodiversity and other environmental challenges. 

To achieve this objective, the project will facilitate dialogue and exchange of knowledge between the scientific communities and relevant funding bodies at European, national, and regional level. It will also systematically identify and update research needs emerging from science, policy debates and society, and enable the inclusion of these priorities in national and regional research strategies and agendas for funding ongoing, and future projects. It will synthesise knowledge; valorise the results of EU-funded projects and initiatives; and build on the knowledge and tools accumulated during previous and existing EU-funded initiatives. Finally, its purpose will be to communicate, disseminate and catalyse research results. 

The project is coordinated by the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). Other beneficiary partners include: BRIGAID Connect, Athena Research and Innovation Centre, Horizon NUA Innovation, SPI Portugal, Aqua Protectors, Austrian Institute of Technology, Oxford Office Ltd, Smart Cities Consulting, Regions4, Inmedia Solutions y Thatzad (That’s advertising). The geographical coverage of MAIA is enlarged through the involvement of Regions4, as we are lucky to have strong EU representatives. MAIA is well-placed to access actors in the system innovation value chain across Europe and the participation of Regions4 as a project partner provides a preventive measure against a potential lack of engagement. 

As a beneficiary partner Regions4 has agreed to carry out the following tasks: 

1. Activate communication between existing networks and help to consolidate a new network between organisations in need of support, organisations providing solutions and facilitators. 
2. Connecting actors and networks with “MAIA Marketplace”, a European community of innovation and technology programmes to boost competitiveness. 
3. Support BC3 in the organisation of policy roundtables and policy dialogues. And to participate in political outreach activities.