The Ecorys Academy has extensive experience with Structural Funds training. During the last decade, the Academy has provided MTEC Structural Funds training, several times a year for participants from the new- and candidate member states of the EU. The training became that popular, that we had, on average, five times more applications than available places. This year, government funding of the regular MTEC-training became very limited with as a result that we could not execute the regular MTEC training in 2010. Based on these considerations, the Ecorys Academy developed the intensive summer Structural Funds course. In this way, we still could offer the training for which a high necessity is felt in the new and candidate members, and at the same time we could invite all those who’s application could not be honoured in the past.

The summer course integrated all the best elements of the regular training, like “Structural Funds, concepts, context and regulations’, ‘Programming and project pipeline development’, Implementation and absorption capacity’, ‘Project appraisel’ and new elements, like an EU simulation and a debating dinner. The participants, from Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia, have evaluated this new initiative with the highest possible scores with special appreciation for the following aspects: “financial modelling’, ‘debating skills’ and “negotiation techniques’. The Ecorys Academy will, therefore, continue with this new initiative.  Besides the summer course, that can be regarded as the basic course on Structural Funds, short and intensive deepening modules will be developed, for example in the field of financial modelling and debating and negotiation techniques.
 

Participants and Ecorys staff of the summer course Structural Funds in Brussels.

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