12 May 2023
Karen Maguire, Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Arantxa Tapia, Mari Jose Aranguren and Alessandra Proto at the OCDE meeting in Trento. Source: IREKIA
Mari Jose Aranguren, General Director of Orkestra, was part of a delegation from the Basque Country that visited the Italian province of Trentino this week
The delegation, led by the Basque Minister for Economic Development, Environment and Sustainability, Arantxa Tapia, took part in a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
During the visit, several bilateral meetings were also held with authorities from the region to identify shared interests and explore opportunities for collaboration
A delegation from the Basque Country visited Trento (Italy) this week to present the Basque model of development and resilience to the OECD Steering Committee on Local Employment and Economic Development. Among the members of the delegation, led by Minister Arantxa Tapia, was the General Director of Orkestra, Mari Jose Aranguren.
The delegation was received on Tuesday by the Councillor for Economic Development, Research and Employment of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Achille Spinelli, who highlighted the similarities between the economic fabrics of the two regions and the potential synergies in areas such as research and development.
The visit continued at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Italy's leading research centre in areas such as technology and innovation, humanities and social sciences. FBK has a staff of 700 people and a scientific infrastructure of more than 3,500 square metres.
Access the panel of competitiveness indicators of the Province of Trento in the Regional Competitiveness Observatory to learn about its main economic-business and wellbeing results.
On Wednesday, Arantxa Tapia and Mari Jose Aranguren presented the Basque model of local development and the policy priorities that have contributed to the resilience of the Basque Country in the session of the OECD Steering Committee on Local Employment and Economic Development.
Euskadi 2040, one of the transformative research projects in which Orkestra is collaborating with the Basque Government to identify the changes that are taking place in the competitiveness challenges of the Basque Country, was also presented during the session. The aim of the project is to build a sustainable and inclusive wellbeing model for the next generation, in a collaborative way, combining the knowledge and efforts of all agents in the territory.
The meeting coincided with the 20th anniversary of the OECD Trento Local Development Centre, with which Orkestra has a collaboration agreement since 2021. Specifically, the institute collaborates with the Spatial Productivity Research Laboratory (SPL), which researches on the ways in which regional policy can contribute to improved productivity and, consequently, to the creation of better jobs and wellbeing.
Orkestra shares knowledge about its research on territorial competitiveness and policies with a wide network of universities, associations, and institutions through collaboration agreements, and as a member of several global research networks. This visit is an important step for the international projection of the institute and for the positioning of the Basque case.
