People are the foundation of all cross-border cooperation. Interreg Aurora is happy to present the people and different professions working across borders with the aim to improve our daily lives.
Meet Johanna Salmi, Financial Coordinator at Centria University of Applied Sciences
I have worked in project finance for the past 9 years at Centria, my office is in Kokkola. I have a background in humanistic sciences, but at some point, I decided to build up my skills in economics.
Involved in the whole life cycle of projects
Currently, I am working in several Interreg Aurora projects. Centria act as the lead partner in two projects, ICH North and Bothnia Business Heritage. I also work with GenGreen and Re-Archtive North, as Centria is a project partner in these projects. As part of our project finance team, I am involved in the whole life cycle of projects, from planning of the project budget until the final reporting.
I work mainly with Interreg projects. The best thing with working in cross-border projects is the international perspective. To work with different kind of organizations in different countries gives great opportunities to gain experience and to learn from each other.
I honestly believe that cross-border cooperation is a crucial part of Research, Development, and Innovation activities (RDI). It gives opportunities to benchmark new perspectives and allows cooperation in areas that have similar challenges because of the geography and long distances.
Before making the first payment applications, I go through the reporting guidelines and then I inform the partners about the guidelines. Sometimes it may cause challenges as the guidelines don’t always reach everyone involved in the project finance or people may change during the project.
When Centria is the lead partner organization in a project, I ask advice from the Interreg Aurora programme team or the Finnish co-financing organization Lapin liitto if the questions are not directly found in the programme manual. This have been very helpful.
The project administrative and finance services cannot be underestimated
I feel that I am a part of the Interreg Aurora project teams. I would say that even though the project implementation has focus on project specific implementation and results, the importance of the administrative and finances services cannot be underestimated. In the future, I would like to join more Aurora events to share experiences in project finance and meet other projects for a knowledge exchange.
Learn more about the Interreg Aurora funded projects Johanna works with
ICH North – Interreg Aurora
Bothnia Business Heritage – Interreg Aurora
GENGREEN – Interreg Aurora
Re-Archtive North – Interreg Aurora
#interregaurora #crossbordercooperation #peopleandbeyond
