Interreg projects
Venice School of Management

CO ADRIA
GECT del Nord Adriatico per promuovere la neutralità climatica entro il 2050: iniziative strategiche per l'efficienza energetica nella regione

The CO ADRIA project tackles the common challenge of climate change in the Italy-Slovenia Programme Area, with the overall objective of contributing substantially to the attainment of climate neutrality by 2050 in line with European objectives.
The overall objective of the project is to promote climate neutrality in the cross-border area through coordinated actions that help improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions and promote the deployment of renewables in key industries and by setting up a common structure. The expected change that the project will make to the current situation is that it will facilitate shared initiatives and help overcome cross-border administrative barriers in order to achieve climate neutrality through new approaches and behaviour.
The project results are: i) the cross-border cooperation network shall be institutionalised in the form of an EGTC, that will act as a hub for cooperation on climate neutrality in the area; ii) the adoption of joint energy efficiency action plans and innovative energy solutions in the cross-border area; iii) the participation in joint training and information initiatives for the promotion of climate neutrality in the Programme Area, to be initially organised within the project and by the EGTC after project conclusion.
Cross-border cooperation is mandatory as environmental and climate challenges spread across geographical or administrative boundaries and require a coordinated and joint effort by communities and partners located on both sides of the border. Furthermore, the sharing of knowledge, experience and good practices between Italian and Slovene partners will foster more effective solutions than what could be achieved by isolated actions at a local or national level.

TESTEAT
Enhance enogasTronomy hEritage to eSTablish and Expand sustainAble Tourism

The Venice School of Management of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice is a partner of the European project TESTEAT funded by Interreg VI A Italy-Croatia CBC Programme 2021-2027.
TESTEAT aims to enhance the role of enogastronomy heritage to foster sustainable socio-economic and cultural development of the cross-border area. Enogastronomy can play a key role to increase the resilience and competitiveness of the tourism sector, reduce its social and environmental impact and improve the quality of life of local communities. The Adriatic area is very rich in intangible enogastronomy heritage and has enormous potential for creating innovative tourism offerings able to enhance experiential tourism and respond to modern needs, food choices and behavior patterns of tourists.
The TESTEAT approach will shape innovative and integrated cross-border tourism offerings through the joint valorisation of Italian and Croatian enogastronomy heritage, joint training of qualified human resources in the tourism sector and joint solutions to address specific demand challenges in peripheral rural and urban coastal areas. The project focuses on raising the skills of the tourism actors and future and current workforce, especially students and professionals (chefs, waiters, destination managers, tour guides, etc.), and improving their knowledge of enogastronomy heritage, modern needs and food choices and opportunities offered by sustainable tourism, circular economy and digitalisation. 
To ensure active stakeholders’ engagement in the project’s activities partners will create two enogastronomy innovative HUBs.The HUBs will be composed of key public and private actors from the tourism and culture sectors that will be involved throughout the entire project implementation. TESTEAT partners and HUBs will develop action plans to shape strategies for valorising enogastronomy heritage and define actions to be implemented in the future to ensure their commitment after the project ends. This will help to strengthen the project's spill-over effects in the tourism and education sectors. TESTEAT can count on a diverse and composite partnership made of public and private entities and educational institutions to better address cross-border challenges and develop joint solutions. 
During the project, two surveys will be implemented: one aimed at understanding the role of food and wine offerings in destination choice and behavior within the destination itself, and the other in order to understand tourist consumer needs regarding food and wine offerings and eating habits.
The project will be enriched with the competencies of universities working on tourism topics, producing market research to map cross-border enogastronomy heritage and developing an innovative framework for integrated tourism offers. TESTEAT will help to create innovative tourism offers adapted to contemporary consumers/tourist behaviors and needs.