The approach to programming in this training course takes elements from specific IPA/Structural Fund regulations, reports and evaluations as well as from theory and practice of interactive strategic planning in general. IPA/Structural Fund programming is basically a specific case of strategy development in a regional policy context. This module presents the main concepts, ideas and principles involved in developing IPA/Structural Fund programmes. Furthermore, it describes lessons from Member States in terms of programming processes. It is important that programmers pay attention to design the process carefully before embarking on it. This can be done with the help of a ‘programming toolkit’, which will be discussed in the third part of this module.

ECORYS' expertise
ECORYS has been delivering this training for almost 10 years for all New Member States (EU Structural Funds) and candidate countries (IPA), constantly updating the contents according to the latest developments in Structural Funds and IPA. Courses have been organised as stand-alone training on behalf of EVD/CROSS (MTEC Structural Funds/IPA training) in the Netherlands (for 50 participants from New Member States and Candidate countries), in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia. Furthermore this training was part of several TA-projects in various countries. ECORYS can boast over 700 succesful  trained participants.

• Principles of programming
• The programming process
• Programming tools

• Know the main Programming principles in a SF/IPA context 
• Understand the SF/IPA Programming process
• Be able to apply a number of Programming tools
• Be acquainted with programming in practice

Client based training
This is an Interactive training course which includes lecture, exercises and, examples from practice