The first approved projects gathered in Helsinki on Tuesday-Wednesday to meet up and to receive information and guidance on the project implementation. Tuesday formed the first Lead Partner Seminar of the Programme and Wednesday was designated for communication aspects with the partners responsible for project communication.

On the first day the 38 participants representing the projects' Lead Partner organisations of the projects received a heavy but useful load of information on how to make the project happen and how do it in an efficient way. Content-wise the Lead Partner Seminar tackled issues like project management, responsibilities of the partners, reporting, eligibility of costs etc. As important as mastering these issues is for the projects, in the end one of the important outputs of the day was that projects got to meet with the Joint Technical Secretariat (JTS) and the Managing Authority staff face to face.

The same acquainting factor was present also on the second day with the Communication Seminar, when the stage was given to information and communication. Together with 28 participants (partly same as on the first day) the JTS presented why and how the projects should work on the communication aspects of their activities in order to be better heard and seen. The projects participated in hands-on excercises raising the awareness and knowledge on how to best market their project and its outcomes to a wider audience.

All in all the two days turned out to be a succesfull first-timer in the coming-up series of Lead Partner and Communication seminars organized by the Central Baltic INTERREG IV A Programme for its projects. We warmly thank all the participants of the seminars and wish you all the best in the implementation of your projects!