What is the co-operation area under the TRUST Programme ?
TRUST is funded under the INTERREG IIIB North West of Europe Programme, which covers all of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Luxembourg, and parts of the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland.
The partners that make up TRUST are drawn from Belgium, Holland and the United Kingdom.
Where can the general outline of the INTERREG IIIB Programme be found ?
To find out more about INTERREG IIIB in North West Europe visit www.nweurope.org.
How much funding is available to TRUST ?
The total budget for TRUST is 9,721,660 Euros, of which INTERREG IIIB is providing 4,860,830 Euros.
What are the main objectives of the TRUST Programme ?
The main objective of the programme is to demonstrate the role that water can play in regional terrestrial planning, and how water storage areas can be used in a multifunctional way to transform both rural and urban landscapes.
There are three sub-objectives:
- To improve water management in land transformation projects (with reference to climate change in the 21st century, rbanisation, the EU Water Framework Directive, geomorphological changes, and so on).
- To implement new technologies and policies to improve the availability of water in dry seasons and the prevention of floods and superfluous water in wet seasons.
- To implement participative processes in which the public and other stakeholders are included in the planning process in order to achieve support for new measures.
What is meant by transnational co-operation ?
In the words of the NWE secretariat, transnational co-operation is:
- looking beyond local issues.
- meeting people, exchanging experiences, sharing knowledge, developing a new culture
- achieving better results together rather than alone.
Transnational co-operation in North West Europe is about approaching common themes through joint projects which will benefit from working across regions to achieve sustainable territorial development together.
How can an investment be transnational ?
The TRUST programme has been designed to explore issues of water management and land use planning that are common to North West Europe. To ensure that the partners benefit from working across regions, three multi-national ‘Theme Groups’ have been established to explore the issues of: surface water management in land transformation projects; the design of multifunctional water storage areas; and public and stakeholder participation in water-related projects
The partners send an expert representative to the each of the Theme Groups. Through a combination of site visits, workshops and other forms of communication, skills, knowledge and experiences of the common issues are shared between partners for the betterment of the local investments.
The transnational work of the three Theme Groups will be co-ordinated by an International Steering Group, comprising senior representatives from each of the partners.
How will the findings and conclusions of TRUST be shared with other countries in North West Europe and beyond which share some of these water management issues ?
The findings and conclusions of the TRUST programme will be disseminated in three ways:
- The activity reports from each local investment and from the three Theme Groups will be made available online on the TRUST website. This will enable stakeholders to monitor the progress that is being made both locally and transnationally.
- A TRUST CD will be developed towards the end of the programme for use by politicians, professionals and the general public. It will outline the objectives, implementation and evaluation of each of the projects involved in TRUST.
- TRUST will develop a guidance manual aimed at professionals from other local, regional and national authorities across Europe. The manual will give a thorough insight into the completed programme, including the approach, results, lessons and transnational added value. The guidelines will be based on the results of the three Theme Groups.
