Just before the summer holidays, Tourism Flanders submitted a full application for call 5 of the Interreg North-West Europe programme. Anneleen Van Tendeloo and Justine Bauters from Idea Consult supported the staff of Tourism Flanders in working with the partnership to develop and submit this application in a co-creative manner.

The challenge

In November 2024, Tourism Flanders decided to prepare and submit a grant application for a project aimed at making tourism in North-West Europe more sustainable. The project focuses on the transition from tourism to a more sustainable and self-regenerative form of tourism (e.g. balancing tourism in terms of time and place, inclusivity).

This is for the 5th call of the European programme Interreg North-West Europe, under priority 5 “Inclusive Society” and specific objective 4.6 “Enhancing the role of culture and sustainable tourism in economic development, social inclusion and social innovation”.

To this end, they sought external support for both the 1^st phase (Expression of Interest, deadline January 2025) and the 2^nd phase (Full application, deadline July 2025). The support had to focus on process guidance, partner search and project development (project development & writing).

Approach & results

Anneleen Van Tendeloo and Justine Bauters supported Tourism Flanders in this assignment in the first (Expression of Interest) and second (Full application) phases.

Since Tourism Flanders had the time and capacity to take on a number of tasks, but needed to further develop its competencies, a coaching approach was chosen for the “practical aspects” (managing partners, requesting information, arranging cooperation agreements, etc.) and a hands-on approach for the substantive development of the application.

IDEA Consult took on the following tasks, among others:

• Preparing partner meetings (agenda setting, content development). Tourism Flanders chaired the digital meetings, while IDEA Consult chaired the one-day physical meeting.
  
• Partnership search: discussing the need for partners from specific regions, approaching own contacts, etc.
  
• Project development in the first phase: refining the project idea, coordination with the subsidy programme, coordination with the national contact point, writing texts for the expression of interest
  
• Project development in phase 2: refining work packages and results, division of tasks between partners, clarification of budget and budget allocation, coordination with national contact point, writing texts for phase 2

The result of this support? An approved Expression of Interest (submitted in January 2025, approved in April 2025) and a submitted Full Application (submitted in early July 2025, result expected in November 2025). But also a partnership that knows each other better, knows where they want to go with the project and has gained additional knowledge and skills within Tourism Flanders about applying for European projects.

Interested in support for (European) grant applications? Send an email to subsidies@ideaconsult.be