Work by Saxion University in the Netherlands on the Sustainable Urban Fringes (SURF) project, was recently identified as best practice by Neth-ER, the Netherlands House for Education and Research.

The first pilot course of the module “Hinterland Management related to port Management” is starting this spring semester. Target group: students of the MSc International Logistics Management and Engineering Programme at NMU partner universities.

The 8th Call for Applications for projects under the North Sea Region Programme is now closed. A total of six applications were submitted.

The North Sea Commission is looking for a new President. There are also other vacant positions with the organisation. The positions are open for politicians from NSC member regions.

Copenhagen is building a new cruise terminal with special focus on energy efficiency and environmental solutions: green roofs that insulate both from cold and heat and absorb much of the rain falling relieving the sewage system, solar energy panels for electricity power, a sustainable indoor climate solution, translucent building elements of polycarbonate, roof-windows minimizing electrical consumption, HEATBLOC surface preventing solar overheating. February 23, 2012 CRUISE GATEWAY partners and further stakeholders met in Copenhagen to get the latest information.

The Sustainable Energy Europe Awards 2012 is currently accepting project proposals for the 2012 competition. Deadline to submit proposals is 29 February 2012.

The second PMG Meeting was held on January 26. Irene van der Craats kindly invited the PMG members to the European capitol, Brussels.

The PMG decided to do a European project inventory.

The Business Development Platform that the twin-projects North Sea Supply Connect and Baltic Supply have been working on over the past year has taken shape in the soon to be launched European Business Support Network.

http://youtu.be/6GHiMfpgik8

Gdansk, POLAND - On October 25th of last year, Chairman Rob Engelsman from the Northern Netherlands welcomed representatives from six countries to the second joint Political Advisory Group (PAG) meeting between Baltic Supply and North Sea Supply Connect at Gdansk Polish Maritime Museum. The meeting was held on the occasion of the Baltic Sea Development Forum Summit. The PAG members were impressed by the new promotional film for the European Business Support Network. After an overview on the progress of the project by co-chair Barbara Schieferstein, Ministry of Economics of Bremen Germany, Professor Henri de Groot from the University of Amsterdam offered some critical remarks playing the “devil’s advocate”.

The deadline to submit project ideas for pre-assessment for the 8th Call for Applications is 16 January. 

The forms for the 8th Call for Applications, both for full project applications and guidance for cluster applications, are now online. Please note that the forms are mainly open for orientation purposes, in order to give potential applicants the possibility to see what information will be required and how to work the online system.

The School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, offers a master programme in “Master of Science in Logistics and Transport Management”.

Steering Committee meeting No. 7 was held 29-30 November in Hamburg, Germany. At the meeting, the Steering Committee decided about the applications received under the 7th Call for Applications.

The German North Sea Regions event 'Joining Forces' was held 22 November in Brussels. Papers launched at the event on the Interreg contribution to the regions are now available online.

A conclusions paper from the Joint Transnational Conference 2011, held 15-16 September in Katowice, Poland, is now available online.

A new guidance note on overheads for projects under the North Sea Region Programme has been made availabe online.

On the website www.aquarius-nsr.eu you can find several interesting and informative videos. Look under "news".

A paper with the main findings and lessons learned from the European Commission audit to the UK is now availabe online.