Since 2009 the Association of Development and Regional Cooperation “OLZA” (PL) and the EuroSchola Institute (CZ) -both TEIN Members- together with numerous partner organizations at their border, have been carrying out actions aiming at creating the first EuroInstitute in Central and Eastern Europe. The idea to create such an organization came from the TEIN leader, the Institute for cross-border cooperation (Euro-Institute) was created at the Franco-German border in 1993.

After having analyzed the state of the art of the cooperation at the PL-CZ-SK border, OLZA and the EuroSchola Institute identified local and regional as well as research and training actors willing to work together on the project of creating the Polish-Czech-Slovak Euroinstitute.

Between 2012 and 2015 the project ”EURO-IN” (co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union in the framework of the Poland – Czech Republic Cross-border Cooperation Operational Programme 2007-2013) enabled the partners to design, test and carry on three types of actions, all in line with the Institute’s future activity: Analysis and expertise, training and consulting, information and promotion.

Analysis and expertise were focused on identifying the needs of the cross-border actors in order to carry out their cooperation projects in a smoothly manner and to overcome the obstacles they could face. This first step enabled the project partner to design future activities.

Training and consulting consisted of a series of pilot cross-border training sessions, meetings and forums. An innovative approach to training sessions was adopted by presenting their topics from a cross-border perspective (Polish, Czech and Slovak). The goal of the meetings was to intensify cooperation between the institutions forming the EuroInstitute partnership. In order to achieve this goal the needs related to cross-border issues of the Polish, Czech and Slovak border region were identified and a common framework of actions was established. Cross-border forums provided an opportunity to exchange good practices and to promote cross-border issues and their importance from the perspective of the region’s development.

The third group of actions was aimed at promoting the project and the future activity of the Polish-Czech-Slovak EuroInstitute. This was achieved, among others, through a dedicated website (http://www.euro-in.org/en/) and information brochures.

Brochure Euroinstitute

The work done since 2009 being successful and demonstrating the need for a tool like a Euro-Institute, the Polish-Czech-Slovak Euroinstitute was created as a network through a Partnership agreement signed by 10 partners of the Region (training and research institutions, local and regional governments, Euroregions) on 30.06.2015 in Kattowice during the final conference of the EURO-IN Project.