The kick-off meeting of the Project «CoalHeritage», funded by the European Commission –RFCS, took place on the 11th of July 2023. It was directed and organized by CERTH, in its capacity as Project Coordinator. The meeting opened with the welcome speech presentation of the Project Partners (KOMAG, PV, BRGM, GIG, and DMT) and the introductory presentation by Dr. Nikolaos KOUKOUZAS, Director of Research at CERTH. Following the introduction, all Project Partners gave a small presentation that included information with regards to their background, organizations, research interest, involvement in European and National Projects.
In the framework of the kick-off meeting, Milestone no.3 (MS3) referring to the Identification of stakeholders was also presented as part of WP2. CERTH, as Lead Beneficiary firstly gave some examples of stakeholders participating in a European Project such as:
- project’s sponsor or coordinator
- project’s partners or beneficiaries
- EU institutions or agencies
- national or regional authorities
- end-users or customers
- civil society organizations or networks
- media or public opinion
Then, there has been a grouping of stakeholders in 3 main categories between:
- Primary (Citizens)
- Secondary (Employers, Landlords)
- Key (Policy makers, Agencies, Legislators)
In particular, regarding CoalHeritage the proposed categories of stakeholders are:
- Government and Municipality agencies of nearby areas
- Research and academic staff from local Universities
- Public or Private Power Corporations
- Local industries and businesses
- Nonprofit and advocacy area groups regarding environment, tourism and archeology
- Business clusters
- Citizens and community groups from the surrounding areas (especially near mining areas)
Fig. 1 Examples of stakeholder categories as identified by different project partners
