Conferences and Working Groups

Virtual Transatlantic Forum on Enterprise and Innovation

This project responds to CFP Objective 2 to provide informational activities promoting greater understanding of the EU and EU-US relations among local and state government officials and business people .

Regional economic development is a common challenge across North America and Europe , but the policies that address this challenge vary on each side of the Atlantic . This variation represents a tremendous opportunity for experts and practitioners to learn from each other. The Virtual Transatlantic Forum on Enterprise and Innovation is designed to take advantage of this opportunity and to enhance each side's understanding of the other.

In years one and three of the cycle, the EU Center will collaborate with two institutions working in the field of regional economic development, the Cardiff Business School and the Institute for Emerging Issues, at North Carolina State University in Raleigh , NC . We will organize two virtual forums, drawing in different satellite partners on both sides of the Atlantic each year. Before each forum, practitioners and local policy-makers, coordinated in Europe by Meirion Thomas ( Cardiff Business School ) and in the US by Roland Stephen (Senior Fellow, IEI), will identify regional best-practices and share these practices through memoranda. One additional video-conference site in the EU and another in the South Eastern US will be invited to join the forum. During the first forum, the participants will review and discuss the best practice memoranda via video-conference. The participants will then adapt their ideas, and, perhaps, adopt other best practices, for further review at the second conference. At the end of the year, the coordinating institutions will submit a report detailing policy initiatives adopted as a result of the forum. The model will be examined after the first year and modifications made if necessary before repeating the project in year three.