/ Strengthening growth in the Kristiansand region
In the first phase of the Development Program for City Regions, the municipalities in the Kristiansand region worked on the development, anchoring and adoption of a joint strategic business plan. In phase 2, support was sought to develop good cooperation models for effective implementation of the strategy, as well as coordination of measures between the municipalities, and development of cooperation between the municipalities and other regional actors.
The focus areas in the strategic business plan were derived from a joint social analysis. The analysis pointed to the need to strengthen competence, innovation, the attractiveness of the metropolitan region and international competitiveness. To meet the identified challenges, the region's municipalities and business actors were to collaborate through the project on the following priority focus areas:
COMPETENCE
- Kristiansand Competence Region
- Inclusive and industry-oriented learning
- Preventing children and young people from dropping out of education and working life
- Regional cooperation with the university
INNOVATION
- Identifying new uses for technology and skills
- Building an entrepreneurial culture and making better use of public funding
ATTRACTIVE METROPOLITAN REGION
- Regional tourism cooperation
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS
- Make use of the European Office for the entire Kristiansand region
- Open Kristiansand's international network to participation from hub municipalities
The main objective of the project was to facilitate effective implementation of the strategic business plan for the Kristiansand region. The municipalities' business efforts should contribute to growth in value creation, employment and population (growth in value creation per capita) on a par with the other metropolitan regions in Norway.
Sub-objective 1: Through good interaction processes, the project partners will arrive at models for long-term cooperation, follow-up of the strategy, and interaction between the municipalities, Node Sørlandet and other regional actors (business, R&D/academia).
Target 2: A business network will be established between the municipalities to own and coordinate the strategy and its follow-up.
Target 3: The work on the strategic business plan for the Kristiansand region goes from strategy and planning to implementation of joint measures, coordinated in the business network and adapted to the individual municipalities.
