Somehow Norwegians seem to like to be on The Grant… I have a good handful of recordings in the box now with organisations from our dear associated friends in the North. There is a great R&D and innovation environment in Norway, so I am very happy to be able to share that with you all.

This week I am zooming in on the area of regional representation in Brussels. Brussels is filled with regional representations from all over Europe that is both working with general policy and concrete project facilitation for stakeholders from the home region.

I have myself been working in such an office and, hence, of course wants to share how they work. To put meat on that bone I invited long-time Director of the West Norway Office, Merete Mikkelsen, into the virtual podcast studio for a talk about the motivation and function of the office. In the episode we cover how they keep a strong connection to the stakeholders in the home region, we have a talk about their lobbying and influencing efforts and of course we look into the project facilitation.

Excellent content to understand how regional representations in Brussels they work.

Time codes:

00:06:12 Fly in

00:14:35 Functions of the office and organisation

00:39:40 The connection home

00:58:21 Lobby

01:10:38 Project facilitation

01:24:02 The toughest challenge