The pilot initiative START Danube Region Project Fund was initiated by Priority Area 10 of the EUSDR to provide small grants in form of seed money for the development and implementation of projects in the Danube Region. It was implemented in the period 2014 – 2016. A total of 48 projects were implemented, with project size ranging from just below 16.000 € to approx. 68.000 €, and START grant per project ranging from 9.970 € to 39.600 €. The projects were implemented by transnational partnerships in the Danube Region, and covered a wide range of topics, from flood protection measures to Roma integration. As a common element, all projects featured a macro-regional impact and pursued objectives or tackled challenges of the EUSDR.

After 3 successful years of implementation and independent evaluation has been conducted to summarise the main results of START, its effectiveness and sustainability. The report (download in PDF format below) aims at analysing the performance of the START initiative in relation to its original objectives and targets and to make its strengths and weaknesses visible, and at enabling future initiative replications and follow-up initiatives to build on the lessons learned.

Read more on the topic here.