Regional Development Agency of North Hungary
Partner Profile
The Regional Development Agency of Northern Hungary (NORDA) was founded in 1999 as a result of the Act on Territorial Development which had stipulated that across the country 7 planning-statistical regions be established which comply with NUTS2 standards. The Agency acts as the executive, implementing organisation of the Regional Development Council. The mission of the Regional Development Agency, jointly with the Regional Innovation Agency is to encourage rapid social and economic restructuring of the region; to develop economic integration, to enhance cross-border cooperation, to increase direct foreign and domestic investments and to reduce the high unemployment rate.
Partner's experience in the field of sustainable tourism
The Agency has taken part in several transnational co-operation actions. In the past few years, the following innovation and tourism related transnational co-operations have been implemented: NORRIS: FP6 Specific Support Action to create a bilateral cross-border innovation strategy (lead partner); ProAct: FP6 Knowledge Region 2 project related with innovation benchmarking (partner); CENCE: FP6 Specific Support Action related with energy clusters (partner); DEPURE: Interreg IIIC RFO project, creation of an innovative public administration cluster, including tourism development and research as one of the priority thematic areas. The INTERREG IIIB CADSES, SHINING Mountains project had played an important role in positioning the region on the global tourism market. It aimed to encourage the development of lagging behind mountain areas through the promotion of sport, health & wellness activities and defining a common methodology and operational tools for preparing local actors for the management of H&W tourism related businesses and cooperation (e.g. health & wellness cluster building).