NEREUS held its annual General Assembly on 8 November 2011 at the Committee of the Regions (CoR) in Brussels. This year’s GA was opened by showing the latest NEREUS video showcasing concrete examples of space applications in its regions. The video which was welcomed very positively by the whole community was one of the key products of an intense cooperation among NEREUS-partners.
This year General Assembly was the occasion to present the activities that took place during the year but also the chance for the NEREUS community to discuss and share opinions on next year’s working plan.
During the last two years NEREUS got a quite good visibility and recognition at European level, however, much more work has to be done in our member regions enhancing the support of the NEREUS activities from the inside. As Mr Bénéteau recalled in his opening speech, NEREUS is a network focused on developing space applications and space based services for the benefits of the regions and their citizens. This can be achieved, he stressed, by the member regions together and not individually in a targeted interregional collaboration. The 2012 work programme, he continued, should not only be focused on the implementation of the network visibility at European level but, more important, to advance and implement the anchorage of the network at regional level.
Giving a concrete example to Mr. Bénéteau’s guidelines and auspices, Mr. Bruns, Vice-President, presented to the members the idea, previously approved by the MB, of a regional strategy aimed at implementing a stronger presence of the network at regional level. Following the presentation of the strategy, a debate was opened among the members. Several suggestions and opinions were collected and finally the GA approved the regional strategy. The President and Vice Presidents received the mandate to address with a formal letter the political representatives (presidents) in each member region encouraging them to reflect on approaches to develop regional strategies that respond to regional needs and challenges optimizing the implementation and exploitation of the network’s opportunities at regional level.
Moreover an overview of the past working group activities by the chairs/co-chairs of the WG was given to the participants. Finally, the GA welcomed three companies, two associations and one university as new associate members of the network:
ALTEC SpA (Piedmont, Italy);
CTOTUS project under POR CREO FESR 2007/2013 (IFAC/CNR, Florence, Italy);
FADOT Foundation (Aragon, Spain);
GeoVille Information Systems GmbH (Innsbruck, Austria);
GIS Bretel (Brittany, France);
Turin University (Piedmont, Italy) optimizing
