As is now a tradition and has been promised during the elaboration of the Committees’ work programmes, Brussels Capital hosted this year on 4th of December again a mutual learning event in the context its AER Vice Presidency. The event wasorganised in cooperation with Catalonia.

The current era, also called the fourth industrial revolution is characterized by the development of big-scale automatization, robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, big data analytics software and high-tech infrastructure allowing for the deployment of the internet of things (IoT). Economy 4.0 is a new era of productive, industrial and economic development which has deep implications on sectors as diverse as education, culture, health, agriculture, industrial production and work in general. The complexity of the societal challenges arising from this transformation makes it all the more important to use collective intelligence and diverse perspectives to shape the future.

What does this mean for policymaking? Where and how should policymakers play a role?

The event raised awareness on the ways in which the fourth industrial revolution is changing the way we live and work. More importantly, the event encouraged all participants to contribute in thinking and shaping the future.

Stakeholders from the private and public sector, industry specialists, entrepreneurs, academics, creatives and policymakers were engaged in genuine exchange. The idea is to share and discuss initiatives which can be implemented right away. A major asset of these events was to discover projects and initiatives and hear of stories first hand. In a setting where each participant is a contributor, the event highlighted opportunities and points of action of the Economy 4.0.

The autumn meeting of the AER Bureau has taken place on 5 December in the Brussels Capital Region.

The Bureau came together to adopt AER’s political priorities for 2020-2025 and it also hosted two debates with European parliamentarians on the Sustainable Development Goals and Digitalisation.

Let’s rEUnite project: Together for cohesion! is an EU-funded project (DG REGIO) that looks at identifying and exchanging successful good practices on communication strategies and initiatives at regional level in relation to the information and dissemination of the use and benefits of the EU Cohesion funds for transposition and/or scaling-up purposes across the diverse European regional contexts and environments.

During the Autumn Bureau Meeting interviews took place as part of the communication campaign Together4Cohesion.

The “Together for Cohesion: let’s rEUnite!” project is built on two main objectives.

The first objective is to raise awareness about the importance of programmes, projects and services funded by the Cohesion policy funds in terms of benefits on citizens’ life. At the heart of this proposal is a bottom-up approach: leading regions, citizens and stakeholders become the main protagonists and thereby Cohesion policy could benefit from this virtuous cycle.

The second objective is to encourage the participation of citizens and stakeholders on Cohesion policy to turn them in active players in the regional and national dialogue on Cohesion policy. That involvement will strength the connections between regions and citizens for a more constructive collaboration in the future implementation of the Cohesion policy programme.