In Kozani, stakeholders came together for an insightful workshop on CoVEs Governance, focusing on public-private partnerships (PPP). This event, set against the backdrop of the Erasmus+ CoVE’s initiative, aims to guide participants toward effective collaboration. By exploring governance models, attendees gained valuable insights and tools to navigate partnership complexities. Therefore, the main objective of the workshop was to give the SEED participants an overview of the different governance models and a hands-on approach to select and apply in public-private partnerships.
In the development of public-private partnerships such as the Erasmus+ CoVE’s, an important step is to formalize the cooperation in regional and transnational CoVE’s. Based on the objectives of the regional cooperation, a governance model will be selected for this.
CoVE’s come in different shapes and sizes. This also applies to how they are organized. In this workshop we have presented 4 different forms of governance for setting up a PPP:
– Consortium Agreement
– Foundation
– Cooperation
– Business entity
For each form the pros and cons were listed, including two practical examples. A decision tree gave an indication how to choose the appropriate model. Two good practices of governance in the SEED regions were presented: the Centre of Expertise Smart Sustainable Cities (consortium agreement) and the Turku Machine Learning Centre (Business entity). The main take home message of the presentations is that form follows function and to start with the lightest governance structure and only expand when a legal entity is required due to commercial or investment reasons.
After the presentations, the regions worked together on the ambitions on governance for the region from the maturity model. To set the needs for the future on governance and financing. When there is already a PPP in the region with the same ambition and sector, it is possible to make a connection.
The conclusion of the workshop is that the most suitable governance model for the different regional CoVE’s is the Consortium Agreement since a legal entity is not (yet) required. Only the Utrecht region has existing PPP’s and it can be investigated to connect to the existing governance.
In the next step, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) templates will be developed to formalise the regional CoVE’s including the governance.
