We were looking forward to getting back to normality and meeting face to face. AGORADA is an annual conference that has been organised for almost 30 years. Development agencies discuss the issues that concern us most. This time the debate is linked to our future as society and requires public intervention from development agencies. Both types of projects (sustainable and social innovation), imply higher impacts but lower profitability and possible additional risks due to longer payback periods. There is a broad consensus among regional development experts that at this point in time, we need to be able to bring more financial resources to these projects. They are aligned with the stronger competitive advantages of Europe in the World. We must use the territorial leadership of the development agencies to bring together all the social actors and obtain funds from non-traditional sources.
The Policy Learning Platform (PLP) of the Interreg Europe programme is one of the key partners of this conference. The PLP has mobilised expertise for AGORADA+2021 in Valencia. They will provide a very practical vision with solutions, capitalising on the experiences of the projects they have financed and other experts. For the physical participants in Valencia, the PLP will organise on-site meetings to provide solutions for the regions that wish to share their experiences. There will also be parallel workshops of the EURADA thematic groups on Smart Heritage Cities and on Digitisation. AGORADA+2021 in Valencia on 28-29 December is the place to be for all regional development experts.
At this moment there are 125 registered participants in this international conference co-organised by EURADA together with the development agency of Valencia (IVACE), the Spanish association of development agencies (Foro ADR) and the finMED project. Among the speakers there are representatives of the European Investment Bank, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and a number of financial experts, investors, entrepreneurs and representatives from regional development agencies who will contribute with their experiences to the success of the international conference.
