Sustainable development is an overarching goal in Interreg Aurora. We are working with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and supporting our projects to be frontrunners. The 27 August 2024 we arranged an internal Masterclass for the Interreg Aurora team. The online workshop was held by Klara Adolphson and Emma Malmén at Innovation Leadership Group.
How can we use challenge-driven innovation and design methods to tackle global societal challenges at the local level? That was the question for the full day online workshop “Masterclass Agenda2030”. The masterclass contained a mix of theory, inspiration, practical exercises, and joint reflection.
The importance of addressing major societal challenges has never been greater, but moving from words to action and understanding how global sustainability goals can become relevant and feasible at the local level is easier said than done. Innovating and working with major and complex challenges, where many different stakeholders need to collaborate, can sometimes be paralyzing, making it difficult to know where to start or to maintain energy in ongoing initiatives.
In this practical masterclass, the participants went through a process with engaging and easy-to-use methods to find focus and direction to start taking action or discover new perspectives in ongoing work addressing sustainable challenges. The approach challenges traditional methods where development often occurs through individual efforts in silos, encouraging us instead to understand that we are part of a larger system and that changes must occur across the entire system, in collaboration, to achieve our goals. Starting with a challenge-driven approach, we are combining the analytical tools of ‘Systems Thinking’ with the creative approach of user-centered design methodology throughout the day. In this way, we can break down and understand challenges and relationships in complex systems while considering people’s needs and perspectives.
Our colleagues from NPA (Interreg Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme) as well as the unit for Internationalisation and Growth at the Administrative County Board of Norrbotten also participated in the online workshop.
We feel inspired and empowered to work even more with supporting our project owners to work with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Ps. Did you know that we arrange a webinar on working with the SDGs for all approved regular projects in Interreg Aurora? The upcoming webinar (for funded projects in call 4) will be held the 3 October 2024. The webinar will also have one part that is open for everyone to attend, where ongoing Interreg Aurora projects will give some good examples from their work.
