Half of this week has gone and it is only now that we can say we have finally recovered from our endeavours from the past week; what a journey it was! It has been indeed an intense week for team RedKnight, as our Directors went all the way down to Romania, in order to deliver two sessions of training on the behalf of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). The training, which was on Proposal Writing for European Structural & Investment Funding (ESIF), whit a focus on the Regional Operational Programme (ROP) for Romania launched in 2014, was organised in cooperation with the European Academy and the local Regional Development Authorities (RDA) in Cluj and Iasi, and it was aimed to train local businesses and universities who applied to the Priority Axis1 of the Programme and wanted to know more on the features and characteristics of this large €6.7billion-worth programme, as well as how to successfully apply for it.

The whole week was organised in two different sessions of 1,5 days of training each, which brought our team to some of the most suggestive regions of Romania, the North-Western Region of Cluj-Napoca and the North Eastern Region of Iași. During both session, our team taught the delegates about the funding requirements specific to the ROP PA1, as well as the tips and trick for writing a good proposal and effectively managing a project. Furthermore, the team had the opportunity to show the quality of the RedKnight method and put few of the tips into practice, when were asked by the delegate to assess and review their preliminary proposals. This final activity was useful not only to the applicants, who could experience first-hand the way RedKnight works, but also the whole training was useful for our business, as we had the opportunity to engage with representatives from the Institutions, academia and the leading sectors of the growing Romanian productive network: a great chance for RedKnight to make a name for ourselves in a land so far from Wales.

The turnout was really outstanding in both venues and the audience was surprisingly various: from fashion industry and textile, to plastic and recycling. Our Director and co-founder, Dayne Hodgson, described the week: “We are so happy we managed to deliver such a successful training. All the delegates were enthusiastic to discuss the requirements of the ROP and to learn methods of bid writing and project management that are new and innovative for the Romanian landscape: we are proud to be one of the very first to share this know-how there.” Furthermore, he added that “it was very interesting to discover the very high level of activity and innovation that is developing within the two regions we visited” and it was surprised to remark that “Romania hides an environment that is still to be discovered, which hides excellent opportunities for cooperation and investment”.

We had a great experience in Romania, such a beautiful country with still a lot to explore, and we hope we will have the chance in future to go back there and explore some more! But now we are back in our headquarters in Abercynon, ready to do what we do best: make our clients succeed.