Cornwall Led UNICREDS Project Holds First Conference in Sweden
A contingent from Cornwall visited a remote region of Sweden last week (23 & 24 June) for the first conference of UNICREDS - a European project co-financed by the INTERREG IVC Programme and led by Cornwall Council, looking at how different models of higher education can benefit regional economic development.
More than 40 delegates attended the event which focussed on the factors laffecting learning in remote geographical areas. The theme was: geographical and community ‘fit’ - design of a decentralised learning model to meet specific physical and social characteristics of failing regional economies in peripheral areas. It was held in Skellefteå in the Västerbotten region of Northern Sweden, a remote and sparsely populated region with a population of just 4.7 per km².
Discussions at the conference considered the proactive attitude of universities towards initiating partnerships with business and the public sector and the need for support from public authorities for universities in accomplishing regional economic development.
Peter Baur, Deputy Head of Unit and Directorate General for Education and Culture at the European Commission was the keynote speaker at the Skellefteå conference. Talking about the importance of cooperation between higher education, business and the public sector for growth, he said: “Bringing the worlds of education and work closer together, working in partnership, is not an option. It is a must. Co-operation has to be based on mutual respect and has to acknowledge the different roles and responsibilities of the respective actors.”
The two day conference was the first in a series of five to be held across Europe, each of which is the final stage in five separate pieces of research work on specific themes done by the UNICREDS partners and involving local authorities and universities.
Talking about the importance for Cornwall of this first UNICREDS conference, Carolyn Rule (pictured below), Cabinet Member for Economy and Regeneration at Cornwall Council, said: “Increasingly in these times of economic instability, Europe is looking to the private sector to take a key transformational role in improving the economy. In a period of restricted public spending, it will be important that the public sector is able to support entrepreneurs in their challenge to regenerate the economy, and high skilled staff will be a vital element of this. Universities and local authorities working together to provide education and skills training and graduate and business start-up, support and growth programmes could provide a step change in economic growth.”
UNICREDS is a €2million project majority funded by the EU in addition to co-financing from each of the 15 partners from Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary and the UK. All the regions involved with UNICREDS share similar characteristics relative to the rest of their countries, such as distance from major cities, population demographics, and reliance on declining traditional industries. People living in these areas can find access to traditional university education difficult for geographic, financial, or social reasons. UNICREDS partners share real life experiences and knowledge of how such challenges can be overcome and how deprived or peripheral regions can be transformed into centres of excellence in research and innovation.
