Boris Meggiorin
BRGM, the French geological survey, is France’s leading public institution for Earth Science applications for the management of surface and sub-surface resources with a view to sustainable development. As an EU funding consultant, I conceived and produced a quarterly newsletter with its team, presenting the EU calls for proposals in line with the research and development topics of the BRGM.
Interkoop is an initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of the province of Alava, in the Basque region of Spain. This programme aims to support internationalization and cooperation for businesses and organisations. Under its umbrella I have provided local companies such as Teklak, a communication agency, with technical assistance to analyse their internationalization strategy in the sector of audience development. For one year we have worked on the international positioning of the brand, the identification of potential partners and relevant topics in Europe. This also brought a reflection on the evolution of Teklak’s services and the analysis of local effects of international efforts in terms of credibility and innovation capacity.
La Baule is a French seaside resort that consolidated its position as a national tourist hub growing into a small size city. The shift from leisure destination to an organic urban area required an upgrade of its infrastructure. In addition, being the home of one of the most beautiful French bays, the threat of environmental risks prompted the project for a complete renewal of its seafront. My role has been to explore and define the European funding opportunities that could co-finance the urban redevelopment of the promenade.
https://www.labaule.fr/municipalite/les-ambitions-de-la-municipalite/promenade-de-mer-1
On behalf of the innovation agency Conexiones Improbables (Spain) in 2021 I gave support to their application as a member of the New European Bauhaus, the interdisciplinary platform for innovation and sustainability of the European Commission. After ensuring their spot in the partnership, I contributed to the production of a cycle of international events to define the role of cross-sectoral innovation in different sectors of the economy and the society.
DeuS is an Erasmus+ Vocational Educational Training (VET) project, coordinated by the Matera – Basilicata 2019 Foundation, that aims to co-create a European-wide learning and training approach in critical thinking and entrepreneurship to find participatory, creative, and cost-effective solutions to local challenges, by unlocking the potential of the cultural and creative sector. The project brings together relevant players from the cultural and creative sector from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Slovakia and UK.
The DeuS project is shaped around the unique Open Design School, a pillar project of Matera 2019 (Italy), European Capital of Culture. It is a design laboratory using a peer-to-peer challenged based approach, where professionals of any discipline work together and share knowledge and expertise while designing, prototyping, delivering and testing design solutions.
The Open Design School methodology goes one step further than existing design thinking processes by applying real solutions to real problems, validated by real people: it transforms applied research in the real domain. In the process, DeuS works as a “think and do tank” where professionals with different backgrounds can upskill and re-skill while responding collaboratively to current societal and economic challenges.
My role in 2021 was to support the production of 10 Living Labs, one for each partnering organization, to test and integrate the Open Design methodology in solving local challenges.
In the frame of the Deus project financed by the Erasmus+ programme of the EU, I have conceived a new format to rebrand the final conference of the project, in the shape of a pop-up radio, featuring radio shows led by each partnering organization. The event took place in 2021.
As a project manager for international relations as the Culture service of the Government of Catalonia, in 2009 I helped the production of the first Compendium for cultural policy in Catalonia, an initiative of the Council of Europe in cooperation of the Ericarts institute. A tool usually dedicated to countries, Catalonia was the first regional government to produce its own Compendium overviewing the evolution of culture and creative industries in Barcelona and its surrounding areas.
In 2009, while working on the cross-border projects of the Euroregion Pyrenees -Mediterranean, I had the mandate to promote the results of projects that were already in their execution phase. That was the case of the transnational mountain hospital built thanks to an EU Interreg fund, at the border between France and Spain, in the Cerdanya valley.
https://interreg.eu/interreg-highlights/people/medicine-knows-no-borders/
“Territorial Cooperation Fostering European Integration: Cities and Regions Linking across Borders” was the title of the first congress of Smart Cooperation taking place in A Coruña (Spain) in 2012.
My role was to support the organisation and the logistics of the event. More than 400 delegates from all over Europe enjoyed the knowledge sharing and networking programme on how to improve practices for effective cooperation between public authorities.
https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/fr/newsroom/events/2012/06/1st-congress-on-smart-cooperation
http://www.espaces-transfrontaliers.org/en/the-mot/evenements/first-congress-on-smart-cooperation/
“Crafting the future” was the theme of the conference, which focused on designers’ practical knowledge. How can the specific knowledge of designers be brought forward, articulated, made visible, and be understood and used in contexts like innovation, business development and social change?
The main hosting organisation, the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), hired TILLT, the innovation agency where I was working in 2013.
As part of the team taking care of international relations, my role was to support the action conceived by TILLT to promote the networking and the reflection of the delegates from all over Europe.
During the Gala Dinner, each table had a box with everyday household materials (such as sponges, tape, thread…) and the delegates sitting at the same table were asked to create, during the meal, a collaborative sculpture by using the objects provided and by representing their common feature.
In a night that was dedicated to the hybrid nature of each human, it was the perfect scheme to make the designers engage in a conversation about commonalities and roots.