European Regions of Gastronomy Platform
IGCAT firmly believes that regional development needs public, private, third sector and knowledge institutions to work together and a great deal can be accomplished by learning from other regions facing similar challenges. The European Regions of Gastronomy Platform was set up to ensure transfer of knowledge as well as to support collaborations that give wider visibility to the efforts of the regions taking part.
The European Regions of Gastronomy Platform is extremely viable for regions, since it creates the opportunity for private, public, academic and third-sector collaboration to bring about shared solutions. Everyone benefits by taking part and therefore we have witnessed a huge buy-in from many different stakeholders in the regions that have taken part in the Platform so far. For example, in Catalonia over 1,800 public, private, third sector and academic entities have already signed-up to be part of the Regional Stakeholder Group and support the principles that the Award is focused on.
Furthermore, by developing a regional stakeholder group, the region has the potential to attract both public and private sector funding and sponsorship, as well as to engage citizens in new and interesting ways.
As regions can only bid for the Region of Gastronomy Award after being part of the Platform and after demonstrating wide stakeholder commitment to the programme, the Award creates a unified objective to work towards within the region and the framework from which to find solutions to regional development challenges.