“The team is young, motivated, with good expertise and new challenges and new European programmes are on the horizon in the coming years. I can’t wait to get started,” said Romina Kocina when she took up her post as Director of the European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) last year. The EGTC is the organisation on the Gorizia side that was set up by the municipalities of Gorizia, Nova Gorica and Šempeter-Vrtojba to identify and address common challenges, to develop a common strategy for cross-border projects and to be a true partner for the cross-border European Capital of Culture. The EGTC GO is essentially our “sister” in Gorizia.
Romina Kocina experiences the two countries on a daily basis. She lives in Capriva on the Italian side, she spent her childhood in Miren on the Slovenian side, she moves daily from Gorizia, where the EGTC GO has its headquarters, to Nova Gorica, where GO! 2025 is based. She naturally moves from one language to the other. This makes her even more eager to connect the two cities, to break through bureaucratic barriers, to connect organisations, associations and people with each other, and to realise the vision of the European Capital of Culture.
She is a political scientist who has been interested in research, innovation and European cooperation since the beginning of her career. Her career started at Friuli Innovazione, Udine’s Research and Technology Centre, focusing on European projects and technology transfer. Since 2016, she had been the Coordinator of the Joint Secretariat of the Interreg V-A Italy-Slovenia Cooperation Programme 2014-2020.
“I am honoured and hopeful to rise to the challenge at the EGTC GO. It is a young, dynamic reality that has already shown its capability and potential over the years, as demonstrated by the many projects that the association has completed,” says Kocin. The EGTC GO manages the GO! 2025 Small Projects Fund, funded by the Interreg Italia-Slovenia 2021-2027 programme (the total amount of the Fund is €8 million), whose main objective is to prepare the cross-border territory for the European Capital of Culture Nova Gorica-Gorizia 2025. They have just recently launched the first call for proposals for €3 million.