The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting everyone! The World Health Organisation, the European Commission  and other responsible authorities have responded, and we have at the NPA programme, firstly through the NPA COVID-19 response group.

Secondly, since the inception of the NPA COVID-19 response group, the NPA Monitoring Committee has approved funding for projects to look at ways in which cooperation can effectively help address the multiple challenges posed by this COVID-19 crisis across the NPA programme area. A call for projects is open until 30th September 2020.  

Our collective and collaborative approach across NPA jurisdictions is expected to enable sustainable, coherent and co-operative responses.   The lock-down in itself has had serious repercussions in terms of mental health and wellbeing, and in terms of society and economy.  At the moment, only the short-term success of the different approaches taken by individual countries can be taken into account.

The aim of the NPA COVID-19 response group is to understand patterns of spread across the NPA area and to be better prepared for a second wave, should it happen!

Six themes have been identified, where joint collaborative efforts could be beneficial:

A.    Clinical aspects
B.    Health and well being
C.    Technology solutions
D.    Citizen engagement/ Community response
E.    Economic impacts
F.    Emerging themes

On June 18th, 2020 the Umbrella COVID-19 project received approval, with the aim to coordinate efforts, collate the information and learnings from all the thematic projects. The project will be led by NHS Highland in Scotland, with a partner from the University of Eastern Finland, and Associated partner from the University of New England (Maine, USA).

Through a flexible and dynamic Management Team , the project consortium will:

• develop and utilise the NPA Covid-19 response group
• support the thematic projects, bring together representation from all NPA partner countries,
• raise awareness of the thematic work being carried out,
• and disseminate the new knowledge created within the projects.

The thematic projects are under development, and are expected to be presented to the Joint Secretariat for assessment with the Regional Contact Points in the near future until September 30th and run for 4 months after approval by the Joint Secretariat.

Currently, we are still looking for projects in theme D. Citizen engagement/ Community response and E. Economic impacts. All interested idea holder are encouraged to contact Christopher Parker, Programme Manager- christopher.parker@interreg-npa.eu