Why Cooperate?

The added value of cooperation

Cooperation can provide local projects with a new dimension, since these types of projects provide stakeholders with alternative and novel opportunities to look for and solve issues in innovative ways. Cooperation projects are capable of producing different types of added-value. These include:

Making projects more ambitious by reaching critical mass
TNC enables a project to achieve a greater critical mass, since the total benefits are much greater than the sum of individual achievements (1+1=11). Pooling resources and expertise can result in economies of scale and synergies, which are favourable to help achieving project objectives (such as costs for technical equipment/technologies, training, marketing, etc.).
Improving competitiveness: finding new business partners, positioning on new markets
Implementing a project with transnational partners can help the promotion of local products and the area of their origin. TNC may provide access to new business opportunities, hence generating a potential for: increased product sales; a complementary business partner to improve a product or process; and additional know-how. In contrast to potential competition, cooperation enables the partners to take advantage of complementarities, and to benefit from similarities.
Supporting work and promoting innovation through new skills
New visions and new dimensions can support and promote new ways of working. Furthermore, exposure to transnational experiences can help broaden business horizons and encourage companies or organisations to adopt improved operational approaches. These in turn should generate knock-on socio-economic and/or environmental benefits for rural areas .
Developing territorial identity and raising awareness
TNC can help local people discover their area and history. By improving the understanding of their own territory, transnational interactions can lead to local actors becoming more open to represent their territory, and thereby becoming true ‘ambassadors’ of their areas.
Strengthening of territorial strategy and local partnerships
TNC projects are linked to the territory and the respective local development strategies of the cooperation partners. These projects help to meet the needs and challenges addressed in the strategies of the cooperating areas.

Taste –T project-

Interview with Sarah Watson
Sowing Seeds, United Kingdom

Example: Artisan Food Producers Country Market – (LAGs from the UK and Ireland)

The project’s activities involved developing a critical mass of local food producers that could act cooperatively on a joint business project to sell their products at farmers markets

Example: Timber-based construction materials and furniture products from mountainous areas (Germany/Austria).

Example: Wine project titled: ‘Together, training and sharing resources‘ (France/Hungary)

Example: ELREN (Italy, Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain)
ELREN facilitated exchanges between LAGs in technical know-how, practical experience, basic commercial information and cooperation opportunities regarding renewable energy production and the energy performance of buildings.

Example: In the footsteps of the Huguenots (France/Germany)

Example: Cultural guides and museum guides (Germany/Austria)