Priorities 2009-2013

1. Increased Interaction in Spatial and Regional Planning

To foster regional development by strengthening knowledge on regional strategic plans of both

sides and increase joint understanding of their cross-border effects

Activities:

• to incorporate ideas of strategic plans of both regions
• exchange of experience in providing public services on the local and regional government level
• creation of cooperation networks between the institutions of the regions’ local governments
• to initiate co-operation in waste management, recycling and energy saving
• to evaluate social-economic feasibility of the Helsinki-Tallinn rail connections

2. Creation of innovative and a barrier free region with common well-functioning markets

To work for removing obstacles of free mobility. To support and facilitate developing services for mobile companies and labour

Activities:

• to activate discussion on barriers restricting mobility of  services and peoples
• to assist in developing public services for mobile people
• to support development of cross-border living lab environments for enterprises

3. Development of Twin-region of Arts and Sciences

To facilitate and support emergence of the Twin-Region based on knowledge and culture

Activities:

• to boost the co-operation of universities
• to develop common region of cultural and media services
• to support cross regional new creative industries

Priorities for 2007 – 2009

Sustainable regional planning

The development of a sustainable region is carried out by urban planning. Great attention is paid to issues like waste processing, recycling and energy saving.

Creating a common business environment

The final objective is an innovative and flexible economy in a borderless region with common and well-functioning labour market. The goals include improvement of regional competitiveness, mutually beneficial environment and access to enterprises and investments, which start cooperation between Helsinki and Tallinn. Next level would be joint marketing of the region and marketing of common products. An important aspect would be the mediation of business contacts in cooperation with technology parks and business development programmes, the creation of clusters and trademark and the promotion of an innovative and competitive environment.

Developing human resources

Development of a science and arts twin region via a Knowledge Arena

It is vital to involve universities and higher educational institutions, research establishments and the business sector in the development activities of cities and the surrounding region.

The areas of cooperation involve the arts, design, media, urban studies and well-being services, and cross-border development of knowledge clusters

Development of skills

The goal is a balanced region with successful human capital: a place where it is pleasant to live, work and study. The region’s integration helps to increase welfare and growth to either side of the Gulf of Finland and the sharing of best practice by means of employees’ exchange, incubation centres and joint university programmes.

Priorities for 2005-2006

Keywords of that period were competence and knowledge:Development of the science region concept, branding activities for the science and arts twin region – the idea of a science twin region was complemented by art and the designation no longer concerned twin cities, but twin region.

In July 2005 the Euregio was a co-organiser of an innovation seminar “Black box, open mind,” which heard addresses by one of the developers of the Skype Internet telephone Niklas Zennström and financing geniuses Steve Jürvetson and Timothy Draper. The audience exclusively consisted of top managers and opinion leaders.

Priorities for 2003 – 2005

The first formal action plan was drafted for the years 2003-2005.Based on this experience, and on the visions for the region and for the region defined earlier, Euregio aimed to define the main objectives and concrete action lines for its work in 2003-2005. Since 2004 it has been agreed that Euregio strategy will be compiled for the period of three years and Euregio action plans will be compiled for the period of one year.

Since the working environment of Euregio had changed as a consequence of being a non-profit association, as well as Estonia becoming an EU member country, there was a need to update the priorities of the organisation. Due to limited resources of Euregio it was also needed to have more clear focus for the organisation.

Keywords of that period were connected to the European Union – how it works and how to operate within the union, dialogue and information exchange, learning how to select possible projects in accordance with t needs of Tallinn and Harjumaa, how to solve own problems.

Very clearly projects for cooperation in research and s knowledge intensive business, which would combine two capitals and 50 local governments into multicultural competence, found interest and attention.

The rectors and pro-rectors of universities of Tallinn, representatives of the Tallinn City Chancellery and higher officials of the Ministry of Education and Research convened in the Euregio offices in January 2004 in order to agree on common interests and spheres of cooperation. The participants declared that knowledge-intensive economy is the only chance of sustainability and that research and development work with Helsinki is vitally important.

The end of the period saw the gathering of information on the students’, lecturers’ and researchers’ mobility and factors obstructing their mobility, the mapping of the most favoured specialities, cooperation projects and information on the universities’ competence per sphere.

This made further common development of syllabi and common programmes possible. The Tallinn University of Technology and the Helsinki University of Technology hired a specialist to coordinate their mutual cooperation.

The Science twin cities project was completed in 2005; it comprised six reports and studies, including two specifically dedicated to Helsinki-Tallinn universitiescooperation “Helsinki-Tallinn – Science Twin City: University Cooperation Development” (Merle Krigul) and “Cooperation in High-tech Business Development” (Raivo Tamkivi).

Helsinki and Uusimaa possessed greater financial and human resources compared to the Estonian parties; this enabled them greater involvement in the necessary initiatives in the Baltic Sea area, especially in the projects of developing a knowledge-based region. Estonian partners in Euregio sought the increase of the role of Euregio as the umbrella organisation in connection with these initiatives.

Priorities 1999-2002

Cross-border co-operation, in a sense of Helsinki-Tallinn Euregio, was something very new for all partners of Euregio in 1999. It was a new issue to combine local and regional actors, especially across the border. It was also quite new in international co-operation to be goal oriented.

Motives in founding Euregio were the general idea of enhancing co-operation between the regions in a co-ordinated way. And more specifically the motive was to prepare for Estonian EU-membership. Stimulus also came from the EU Commission that encouraged border regions to build “genuine cross-border structures”. By following examples from Central Europe, it was hoped that Euregio could be developed into an administrator of Interreg IIIA programme for its own area. After all, this was not possible. Interreg IIIA programme area was defined to cover the whole of Southern Finland and the whole Estonia. Secondly, Euregio did not develop proper administrative capacities to meet that challenge. This was the reason why preliminary talks and the finding of suitable forms of cooperation took relatively long time.

The priorities and tasks of the Helsinki-Tallinn Euregio as defined for the period 1999-2002 resembled more mapping of all potential fields of co-operation, studying the operating environment, learning the work culture of the neighbour and building of the co-operation network. During this starting period Euregio conducted several studies, and series of organised discussions on common future visions and trends took place. These were reported and discussed at the Euregio Forum in 2001 when Academician Mart Saarma proclaimed the idea of building a “science bridge” between Helsinki and Tallinn; it became the leading topic for the Euregio for coming years.

About the activities of Euregio, please read the documents below: