23 new projects receive funding from SI

The Swedish Institute seeks to strengthen Sweden’s relations and develop cooperation with the countries around the Baltic Sea and the countries of the Eastern Partnership. Swedish actors can apply for support from the Swedish Institute to start or expand cooperation with actors in the countries of the Baltic Sea region. In this year’s call, SI granted funding for 23 new projects spanning a range of thematic areas.

– These projects now have the opportunity to lay the foundation for robust and long-term collaborations that meet the challenges of the region. We see in our follow-ups that many continue their collaboration even after SI’s project funding is completed, often with funding from one of the EU programmes in the region, which is also one of the basic ideas with the funding programme, says Åsa Lundmark, head of the unit for scholarships and project support.

In the projects, actors from SI’s partner countries in the Baltic Sea Region, which include the countries around the Baltic Sea and the EU’s Eastern Partnership countries, work together.

– Cooperation between the countries around the Baltic Sea and the countries of the EU’s Eastern Partnership is particularly important in the current situation. The opportunities to create and maintain contacts that the funding programme provides are of great importance for the future development, states Åsa Lundmark.

The approved projects will begin during the summer and autumn. Below are a number of project examples:

• The BSRWood project (Accelerating wood construction across the Baltic Sea Region) aims to contribute to reducing the climate impact of the construction sector by gathering stakeholders from most countries in the Baltic Sea region to explore how wood can replace steel and concrete in buildings. The project focuses on a cross-sectoral exchange of knowledge about wood as a resource, technologies, labor market needs, skills needs, export opportunities, etc.
• The PreMiWaF project (Cooperation on Prevention and Mitigation of Waste Fires and its Consequences in the Baltic Sea Region) aims to limit the occurrence and extent of waste fires at landfills. The project brings together actors from Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine. It focuses on achieving a broad exchange of experience and cross-sectoral discussions on innovative solutions and will also prepare a major EU project.
• The PeerNetSE project (Piloting a new peer learning network for Swedish-Baltic social entrepreneurs) aims to create a transnational network for social entrepreneurship. Umbrella organizations in the Baltic Sea Region gather to develop and implement a pilot programme with learning opportunities and workshops for social entrepreneurs in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. The ambition is for the pilot to result in a functional and formalized network model that in the long run will be able to include more countries.

You can find the list of approved projects on the Swedish web page of the funding programme.