Project partner Pannon Business Network Association organised in Sarvar, Hungary, at the end of January 2020, two important events for the implementation of the Danube S3 Cluster project, namely: the First Policy Dialog Workshop and a Transnational Workshop.

The First Policy Dialogue Workshop, organised on January 21st, was based on facilitating the exchange of information, knowledge and best practices in the Danube region in order to improve the coordination of cluster policies in the field of Agro-Food in the programming period 2021-2027.

The main purpose of this meeting was to debate and coordinate the main results of the Danube S3 Cluster project with the Priority Areas of the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR). In this regard, representatives of public administration, representatives of Priority Areas 7 - "To develop the Knowledge Society (research, education and ICT)" and 8 - "To support the competitiveness of enterprises, including cluster development”", as well as the project partners and stakeholders have discussed that the actions and provisions of the Danube S3 Cluster Strategy should be aligned with the "White Paper on Strengthening the Capacities of Clusters" issued by the Priority Area Coordinators 8 - Croatia and the Land of Baden-Württemberg. Two more policy dialogue workshops will take place in 2020 in Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Transnational Workshop for the establishment of the priorities and Action Plans, which took place on January 22, gave the participants the opportunity to analyze and discuss the progress made in finalizing the documents within the project that will be the basis of the Danube S3 Cluster Strategy, a document subsequently tested and validated through the implementation of the 5 Local Action Plans in Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia and Slovakia.

Thus, Smart Specialization involves selecting the most relevant priorities and channeling resources towards those investments that can have the greatest impact on the regional economy. In this context, the priorities must define concrete and achievable objectives, objectives that derive from the documents "Transnational analysis of the Danube regional context and the potential for innovation of clusters" and "Report on the 4 Focus Groups of Entrepreneurial Discovery" elaborated within the project. In this regard, the representatives of Priority Areas 7 and 8 of the EUSDR, the partners and the stakeholders of the project established the mission, vision and priorities of the future Danube S3 Cluster Strategy.