Maramureș County Council has initiated, as a partner, the project "OpenRegioCulture – Co-creating an Accessible Climate for Cultural Resources for People with Special Needs," funded under the INTERREG Europe 2021-2027 program, call 2.

The OpenRegioCulture project will run from 1st of April 2024 to 30th of June 2028, implemented by an international partnership consisting of 10 partners from 9 European regions. The partnership leader is the Malopolska Region in Poland, and the partners are the Malopolska Institute of Culture in Krakow (Poland), Maramureș County (Romania), Hajdu-Bihar County (Hungary), the Sterea Ellada Region (Greece), the Corsica Collectivity (France), the Zuid-Limburg Region (Netherlands), the Riga Planning Region (Latvia), the Frankfurt Rhein Main Cultural Region (Germany), and the KMOP Policy Center (Belgium).

The general objective of the project is to improve regional development policies in the field of accessibility to cultural and natural resources for people with special needs, through interregional exchanges and practical solutions that will allow the development of recommendations and guidelines for implementing cultural accessibility standards in the partner regions.

Through an innovative approach focused on co-creation in the culture and tourism sector, the OpenRegioCulture project aims to blend culture and social inclusion in the regional policies of the partners, involving all stakeholders in the field, such as authorities, institutions, professionals, as well as the final beneficiaries, meaning people with special needs whose rights will be guaranteed.

The total budget for the OpenRegioCulture project for the four years of implementation is 2,190,316 euros, of which the budget for Maramureș County Council is 204,470 euros, with 80% non-reimbursable funding from the European Regional Development Fund amounting to 163,576 euros, 18% national co-financing amounting to 36,804.6 euros, and 2% own contribution from Maramureș County Council amounting to 4,089.4 euros.

The interconnected project activities will take place in three stages, with the first step being an analysis in all partner regions regarding the accessibility of cultural and natural resources for people with special needs. In the second stage, there will be 7 study visits for interregional mutual learning, presenting relevant good practices identified in the first stage. The third stage of activities refers to the transfer of knowledge by evaluating the good practice examples presented in the second stage, identifying 24 transferable good practices, and adapting them to improve the policy tools of the partners.

OpenRegioCulture is a project implemented by Maramureș County Council through the Diaspora and International Relations Service within the Directorate of Finance, Tourism, and Public Relations. More information about this project can be found at the link: https://www.interregeurope.eu/openregioculture.

Maramureș County Council is currently implementing 3 projects funded through the Interreg Europe 2021-2027 Program, namely the "SIRM - Socio-Economic Integration of Refugees and Migrants" project, funded through call 1, as well as the projects funded through call 2, namely "CIBUS - Reducing Food Loss and Waste in Europe" and "OpenRegioCulture - Co-creating an Accessible Climate for Cultural Resources for People with Special Needs".

Margareta Căpîlnean
PROJECT MANAGER

Roxana-Talida Roman
COMMUNICATION MANAGER