At the request of NYERŐMAGYAROK.EU, STRIA South Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency Nonprofit Ltd., as coordinator, gave an interview about the SAGA project:
What does the term “Empty Europe” mean?
The trend of rural depopulation is typical of many European countries and regions. These areas face significant demographic and economic challenges, exacerbated by the low quality and difficult availability of public services, but they also have a valuable tradition. The project aims to help reduce inequalities, economic recovery and inclusive and sustainable long-term growth in the “Empty Europe”.
Have you dealt with this topic before?
Two of STRIA’s previous international collaborations have also focused on helping entrepreneurs in the food industry. One of our projects, completed in 2019, was to improve entrepreneurial skills and competencies through food industry innovations. The other was a previous project aimed at increasing the low competitiveness of agricultural SMEs through R&D activities, the development of internationalization support services and the innovation potential of traditional products. During the implementation, we saw, and previously experienced from other areas, that both the SME sector and individual enterprises are areas to be developed. Anyone who does not have the opportunity to start a business in the food industry can also choose the primary producer and social cooperative form.
The focus of the project is the development of the training program…
In order to serve the real needs of the target group, we will first carry out a desk research, which is in progress and will last until about the end of May. In order to establish the curriculum itself and assess the needs, what skills and competencies should we help to develop, we first conduct a situation survey of the regions involved – this means two regions in Hungary, Southern Transdanubia and Northern Hungary.
We carry out regional analyzes, look at the areas in which social enterprises operate, visit them – the two partners examine a total of six social cooperatives in Hungary in the fields of agriculture, food, tourism and gastronomy – and assess the difficulties they have faced since their inception, what they were able to overcome, what is still a problem for them and how they can prevail in the market.
We visited a juice pressing plant in Kisvejke, a social cooperative dealing with pickles in Márok and a social cooperative producing dairy products in Magyarhertelend.
The full article is available at https://nyeromagyarok.eu/del-dunantuli-regionalis-innovacios-ugynokseg-nonprofit-kft.html.
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