Project meeting in Sweden gave tips on tendering and hope for future pilots

The SEABASED project held a meeting in Gryts Varv, Valdemarsvik, Sweden 30.–31.1.2019.

Catching up with the pilots – challenges are a part of the process

After a long and winding morning of travelling we arrived at the picturesque Gryts Varv hotel in Valdemarsvik, Sweden to meet up with our project partners. It was aspiring to meet all the scientists, researchers and officials. Besides the SEABASED-team, we also had the pleasure of having our Interreg Central Baltic project officer Monica Balode with us.

We were greeted with beautiful scenery in Gryts Varv

After lunch and settling in, we continued with hearing the latest news regarding the pilot studies. It seems things are mostly going smoothly, although there are still some challenges to be solved. Luckily, we had planned a workshop to help recognize the next steps and to help figure out possible solutions together with all the project members. It is not unusual that there are unknown factors and challenges when something complete new is being tested. Nevertheless, it is very exciting to solve these issues and any result from the pilot studies is valuable for the future guidelines of recommendable actions. These pilots will provide us new information about the costs and practical feasibility of the methods we have chosen, whether they work in the practice and if they are realistic or not.

The SEABASED project partners meeting up and changing thoughts

Tendering saves money and helps find the right contractor

The project officer of the Interreg Central Baltic program officer Monica Balode and the director of the Clean Baltic Sea projects Marjukka Porvari stressed out the importance of tendering concerning EU-projects. It is not only obligatory bureaucracy, but it might save the project a lot of money or help find just the right contractor to carry out needed actions. It is also important to make sure that the non-tendered actions do not exceed the budget limits. As they say, it is better to be safe than sorry, it is completely fine to tender although the planned budget is under tendering limits. In some cases, there have been unforeseen costs that had shifted the budget over the national tendering threshold, which had led to sanctions. Although it takes a bit more effort to find time for the tendering process, it is worthwhile in the end.

The project team is feeling optimistic regarding the pilots

We had a workshop on the next steps regarding the pilots

The workshop results were presented the next day before leaving back home. We had a very constructive discussion on how to proceed with the pilot studies. The project team is very supportive and optimistic regarding the next steps. As they say in the popular TV-series, make it work!