The 17th meeting of the IQ-Net network was held in Newcastle, North East England, on 23-25 May 2005. The meeting was hosted by the Government Office for the North East and ODPM, and was attended by around 40 representatives from the network's partner organisations, the European Commission and a guest from Poland.
The meeting started with an introductory presentation on the North East region and its Objective 2 programme on the evening of the 23rd. The plenary sessions the following day were launched by a review of the Structural Funds reform debate and an overview of programming developments in partner programmes (with a presentation by John Bachtler of EPRC).
Veronica Gaffey of DG Regio presented the Commission's perspective on the mid-term evaluation updates, and Garry White from ODPM provided an overview of the mid-term evaluation update in England.
The next session concentrated on the main theme of the conference: territorial cohesion and Structural Funds programmes, urban development and territorial co-operation. Laura Polverari of EPRC gave a presentation on territorial cohesion and the Structural Funds.
This was followed by plenary discussions and two parallel workshops chaired by Martin Hennicke (Ministry of Economy and Labour, Nordrhein Westfalen) and Andrea Floria (Italian Ministry of Economy and Finances).
The study visit on the final day gave delegates the opportunity to visit Sunderland, another major city within the North East region. On the way to Sunderland, the group travelled past the Angel of the North. The site, a former colliery pit head baths, has been re-claimed as green landscape with the help of ERDF funding. Projects visited on the tour also included: the Thornhill School's Arts Included Project, an ESF project which uses an intensive arts-based approach to working with socially excluded young people; the Sunderland arc, set up to regenerate urban areas along the south bank of the River Wear; and The National Glass Centre, which celebrates Sunderland's place in the history of glass. A presentation was also given on the many new attractions being developed along Sunderland Riverside.