We’re excited to share a recap of the recent Bilateral Meetings between Thematic Projects (TPs) and the Natural Heritage Mission (NHM), which served as crucial gatherings for advancing our collective efforts in natural heritage conservation and management. These meetings aimed to streamline collaboration, promote innovative solutions, and lay the groundwork for future amplification activities of Thematic Projects.
Goals Achieved During the Meetings
The primary objectives of the bilateral meetings were multifaceted, focusing on enhancing the impact of the Natural Heritage Mission and their TPs. Key goals included:
- Promoting Opportunities: Showcasing the capabilities and service portfolio of the Natural Heritage Mission Amplification Room.
- Tailored Coordination: Providing a customised environment to align TPs’ transfer strategies with the broader Natural Heritage Mission activities.
- Validating Input and Planning Activities: Gathering and validating input from TPs and collaboratively agreeing on initial amplification activities to be carried out within the Mission’s framework.
Meeting Agenda Highlights
The meetings followed a structured agenda designed to facilitate comprehensive discussions and decision-making. Key discussion points included:
- Introduction and Welcome: An overview of the Natural Heritage Mission’s Amplification Room and its services.
- TP Work Plan and Expected Results: Presentations by TPs on their activities, expected results relevant for transference and policy mainstreaming, and their proposed transfer strategies.
- NHM Support for Transferring TP Results: Discussions on how the Natural Heritage Mission could best support the transfer of TP results, including suggestions, discussions, and agreement on next steps and timelines.
- Policy Mainstreaming and Advocacy: Identifying needs for policy mainstreaming and advocacy, capacity-building requirements, policy mapping, and cataloguing best governance practices.
- Supporting Tools and Wrap-up: A session dedicated to outlining available supporting tools and concluding the meeting.
Key Discussions and Outcomes
Several critical areas were addressed, setting the stage for future Amplification Room initiatives:
- Peer Review Process: The Natural Heritage Mission’s peer review process aims to assess the transferability of solutions and present the key features of the most prominent project results. The process gathers the input for the NHM catalogue of transferable solutions, the Interreg Euro-MED Library, and inclusion in dissemination actions. Discussions allowed to jointly identify these key outputs and evaluate the opportunity to engage other members of the community in a more in-depth analysis, thus expanding transfer opportunities.
- Cluster Development: The meetings emphasised the importance of generating comfortable environments for dialogue for smaller groups of interest, called clusters allowing to identify transfer opportunities, expanding participation by involving networks and target audiences. Natural Heritage Mission suggested 16 clusters to be created to tackle specific Thematic Projects synergies and goals, and feedback from TPs allowed to create a first prioritised set of clusters on ‘Climate change adaptation for coastal areas’, Nature Based Solution for flood regulation’, ‘Tools for Disaster risk reduction (DRR)s’, ‘Forest management’ and ‘Tools for Environmental governance’.
- Mentorship Opportunities: The Natural Heritage Mission supports the identification of community members and external key actors to enhance the adoption of the solutions produced by TPs. Several actors from different organisations were identified and allowed to start designing tailored mentorship programs to be launched in autumn 2025.
- Interreg Euro-MED Academy: Progress on the Euro-MED Academy Moodle platform was discussed, including the establishment of a feature wish list and the preparation of the educational structure. This work is done in coordination with the Interreg Euro-MED Programme’s Joint Secretariat and the other 3 Missions of the Programme, as to jointly build the online learning platform including different capacity building courses to enhance the transference of solutions in a harmonised way.
- Policy Mainstreaming and Advocacy Needs: Discussions focused on identifying events to promote solutions, stakeholders to engage, and how solutions align with policy instruments and governance tools. Capacity-building needs in terms of policy were also highlighted for inclusion in working groups and institutional dialogue. Policy mapping identified key targeted policies (e.g., European Green Deal, Marine Strategy Framework Directive) and stakeholders (e.g., port authorities, research centres, environmental ministries).
These bilateral meetings were instrumental in fostering collaboration, refining strategies, and setting clear directions for the Natural Heritage Mission’s ongoing efforts to promote and transfer valuable solutions for natural heritage conservation through the Amplification Room Portfolio of Services. The insights gained and agreements reached will significantly contribute to the success of the thematic projects and its broader impact on environmental quality and governance in the Mediterranean region.
