Identification, dissemination and exchange of good practice in local employment development and promoting better governance

IDELE Project

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Seminars

Seminar 4

Successful local milieux and the Lisbon process: local employment development in the context of the Lisbon Strategy

Cork, Ireland, 8 October 2004

View across the River Lee in Cork.

The fourth IDELE seminar took place at the Jurys Hotel, Cork, the European Capital of Culture 2005 on Friday 8 October 2004. The seminar explored the role of local employment development in the context of the Lisbon Strategy. In general the EU policy agenda often seems distant to local-level stakeholders and this seminar offered an opportunity to explore how local level action links directly to the Lisbon agenda. The meeting also examined local employment development from the perspective of ex-urban areas and small to medium-sized towns.

Key questions discussed in the Cork seminar:

  • What contribution can local employment development make to the Lisbon process?
  • How can local employment development activities help to provide an environment in which the knowledge-based economy can flourish?
  • How can local employment development best promote learning and education in a way that genuinely responds to the demands of a knowledge-based society?
  • How can socially excluded people best be integrated into the knowledge-based economy?
  • Where local economies have become ‘success stories’—what are the special ‘X-factors’ that help them sustain this?

The seminar consisted of introductory presentations from experts to set the scene. Professor Peter Lloyd talked about the potential of the local in the context of the Lisbon Agenda. Mr Palle Banke from the Danish Technological Institute discussed how to develop competitiveness through work organisation. Phillip O’Connor, director of the Dublin TEP, focussed on the opportunities of local partnerships in development activities. Parallel workshops involving presentations from good practice partnerships and peer group discussion were also held. The seminar finished with a final round-table discussion involving all delegates.

Seminar documents

Examples of good practice

Seminar presentations

Seminar photographs

Photographs of the seminar in Cork.

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