On March 4, 2021, the results of the 1st mini-call in the Interreg VA program "Southern Baltic Sea" were published. Connect2SmallPorts project is among the winners. In total, nine project applications were approved, with the aim to accelerate the battered project implementation phase due to COVID-19 pandemic and to give the projects new perspectives and implementation opportunities. All approved projects were able to secure additional co-funding.
The Connect2SmallPorts project was able to prevail with very innovative ideas to implement an additional digitalization pilot in the seaport of Ystad (Sweden) and establish a joint excellence center to strengthen the innovation capacity of small and medium-sized ports in environmental and digital transformation together with the other partner project SECMAR.
The strength of the newly planned activities lies in the fact that in the course of the project implementation in the program "Southern Baltic Sea" for the first time, two thematically related projects (Connect2SmallPorts and SECMAR) have decided to act together and thus better and more targeted support small and medium-sized ports in the Baltic Sea region and in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The Connect2SmallPorts project ends on 31.12.2021, by which time many new activities targeted at regional ports will be implemented to underpin digitalization and environmental compliance, especially in view of the European Green Deal.
The European Project Center, under the conceptual leadership of Dr. Gerlitz, had identified the idea of the need for digitization in small and medium-sized ports in 2017 as part of the start-up funding of the "Southern Baltic" program and developed it into an insightful concept. Within the framework of the large project, numerous results have already been achieved, including the practical digitization tools for small and medium-sized ports, such as digitization benchmarking tool, digitization trainings and much more.