Breakout Sessions

What does resilience look like in practice across the Baltic Sea region? What do Interreg projects already tell us about it?

This hands-on workshop draws on Interreg experience in building community resilience, crisis preparedness and maritime safety. It showcases how transnational and cross-border cooperation, powered by Interreg, delivers practical responses to shared security and societal challenges.

Together with Interreg project representatives and EUSBSR Policy Area Coordinators, participants explore how real project results can be taken beyond individual projects. Participants will also define concrete next steps and identify potential for future cooperation and the implementation of the EUSBSR Action Plan.

Who cares for our carers when their strength and stability are tested? Health and social care services are the backbone of societal resilience, yet their ability to function depends on skilled and committed individuals. This session explores how innovative initiatives and workplace strategies can support those on the front lines. Join us to discover practical ways to sustain work ability, foster recovery, and secure a resilient workforce capable of navigating in an increasingly volatile world.

Intended to be fun and interactive, this role-play workshop introduces participants to mission-orientated innovation policy. Participants will be tasked with a mission to address a wicked problem. Each will each play the role of a key stakeholder. Working together, they will develop a vision of what the world would look like if their mission was achieved, set milestones to test progress and possibly devise a strategy to ensure key partners pull their weight.

EU external border regions face growing geopolitical volatility and hybrid threats. Resilience cannot rely on hard security alone; it also depends on people‑centred cooperation: cohesive communities, shared solutions, and inclusive services that safeguard everyday life. In this session, a live disinformation scenario triggers rapid, community‑level responses to identify existing tools, expose gaps, and forge cross‑border cooperation that contains harm and rebuilds trust.

This scenario-building workshop brings together actors with diverse expertise to share their ‘stories and visions’ for building a ‘total resilience’, BSR response. By connecting industrial, policy, citizen, investment and political testimonials, we will shine a light on the multi-faceted nature of resilience. Through active audience engagement, we will co-create the conditions, challenges and benefits that come with a resilience ‘mindset’, fit for the BSR in a security and defence era.

Save your community: In this hands-on workshop, participants will step into the shoes of local actors and be assigned a specific role in an interactive flood simulation built on real-life data. Joining forces, we bring together local knowledge, practical experience, and community engagement. We will explore how coordinated action between authorities, stakeholders, and citizens can strengthen preparedness, reduce damage, and build a resilient future where every citizen plays a vital role.

How can the Baltic Sea Region turn demographic ageing into a driver of resilience and innovation by 2040, while accelerating the digital and green transitions? This interactive workshop connects three forces shaping the region: ageing societies, climate and environmental pressures, and rapid digitalization. 

Participants will work with practical cases and guided prompts to identify the most pressing risks (e.g., heat, flooding, care capacity, digital exclusion), the most scalable solution pathways (e.g., energy-smart living environments, circular home adaptations, accessible mobility, preventative health tech, trusted information services), and the cooperation needs across policy, business, research, and civil society. The session is designed to produce decision-ready outputs participants can use immediately for a shared “priority actions” map, pilot concepts, and next-step collaboration options across the BSR.

In the ever-changing security landscape, new threats are appearing, and old threats appear in updated versions. The accident risks are increasing and the environmental consequences are greatest at sea, making effective risk assessment and the adjustment of response preparedness crucial.

The session explores how maritime and transport risk management must adapt to the new reality, and presents emerging risk patterns, measures already in use, and how the approaches can be scaled in the BSR.

The ability of communities to act together has been central to Ukraine’s resilience and offers critical lessons for the BSR. Working with and learning from Ukraine continues to unlock strategic advantage. Join Ukrainian stakeholders and BSR practitioners to explore lessons identified and engage in shaping how future cooperation, including projects, with Ukraine can be more effective add value and be mutually beneficial. Combining first-hand insights, funding opportunities and interactive discussion, you will help shape a practical roadmap for meaningful engagement with Ukrainian stakeholders in future projects.

This session links three levels: community practice, institutional capacity, and transnational cooperation. It focuses on strengthening BSR-Ukraine cooperation by extracting lessons from ongoing projects, while inviting the audience to co-create an actionable road map for more impactful future cooperation. Ukrainian and BSR practitioners from local/regional authorities and civil society share first-hand insights into cooperation with the BSR under conditions of war, displacement, and systemic disruption. 

Part A  –  Learnings: What can the BSR learn from Ukraine? 
Drawing on the community-centred projects RESCOM and Ria ENGAGE, the session explores Ukrainian experiences of community resilience, self-efficacy, and local mobilisation, focusing on transferable lessons and practical learning. 

Part B– Practice: How can BSR stakeholders support Ukraine? 
An interactive workshop on meaningful local and regional cooperation: designing mutually beneficial projects, aligning funding, and avoiding common pitfalls. In group discussions participants develop a concise roadmap covering priority areas, cooperation formats, and funding opportunities. The session also aims to map participants own concerns and needs for better cooperation with Ukraine. 

The panel includes Ukrainian local/regional and civil society actors, a BSR local authority, is moderated by CBSS, and is joined by the Swedish Institute with input on new funding instruments. Additional Ukrainian participants from the projects will be placed at each table and provide input to the group discussions. 

The Baltic Sea region has been facing increasing hybrid threats targeting critical infrastructure: from subsea sabotage, GPS jamming, drone surveillance to persistent cyber campaigns. Following the Baltic states’ synchronization with the Continental European Grid (CEN) and recent regional memorandums on cable security, coordinated national and macroregional infrastructure protection has never been more important.

Holistic defense requires whole-of-society approach. As such, this session will hold strong emphasis on the municipal level, exploring how geopolitical events and threats impact all levels of society – including the local communities.

The session involves stakeholders from private and public sectors, including security and energy experts. It will focus on differing perceptions, shared situational awareness, and joint risk assessments to better manage difficult situations emerging from modern threats. Participants will exchange hands‑on experiences, discuss decision‑making in crisis scenarios, and identify clear coordination and communication pathways across sectors and borders.

What makes this session unique is its multi-level, implementation‑oriented approach, connecting strategic resilience goals with everyday realities on the ground.

Dive beneath the Baltic Sea’s surface to uncover the hidden dangers/treasures of sunken munitions and wrecks. This interactive, cross‑sector session blends expert insights, new technologies, and immersive multimedia to explore solutions for a safer, cleaner sea. Join the debate, shape action, and help protect one of Europe’s most vulnerable marine environments.

Cities across the Baltic Sea Region have developed SUMPs and integrated TEN-T objectives, yet implementation often stalls. This session offers a reality check from BSR urban nodes, drawing on survey insights across different governance contexts. It examines political and governance conditions shaping implementation and identifies challenges requiring cross-sectoral and multi-level cooperation, delivering policy-relevant messages for the BSR Urban Mobility Policy Framework and EUSBSR Action Plan.

This session explores culture as often overlooked critical infrastructure for resilience and preparedness, drawing on recent research and practice. It brings together insights from a comparative study on preparedness along NATO’s Eastern Flank and evaluation findings from the BSR Cultural Pearls project to discuss how culture contributes to resilience and security-building under conditions of hybrid pressure and geopolitical uncertainty.

The discussion opens with findings from “Preparedness on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Culture as Infrastructure for Resilience,” a comparative study of Finland and the Baltic States, with lessons learned from cultural responses in Ukraine. The research examines how culture is integrated into national preparedness and security plans and clarifies its role in strengthening community resilience, societal preparedness, and civil infrastructure. The study, scheduled for publication around EUSBSR forum, provides insights into how culture supports democratic stability, societal preparedness, and crisis response.

The session also will draw insights from the BSR Cultural Pearls project, highlighting the evaluation findings made by KEA European Affairs “Impact Evaluation of the BSR Cultural Pearls Project: Community Resilience and Cultural Innovation”.  The findings demonstrate the contribution of culture to resilience-building at local level across awarded Cultural Pearls communities in the Baltic Sea Region. The input will focus on practical lessons from municipalities and cultural initiatives on how culture strengthens resilience on the ground and how evaluation evidence confirms these impacts.

Building on these perspectives, the session will open an interactive space where participants are invited to reflect on existing knowledge gaps, next practical steps in strengthening the role of culture into regional resilience and preparedness strategies, and future scenarios in which culture plays a more systemic role in safeguarding and strengthening our region.

Smart specialisation strategies (S3) would greatly benefit from embracing the Creative Economy (CE). Retaining young talents, creating new jobs, fostering thriving start-ups, participatory communities, attractive education centres – how can public authorities activate change and success? In our workshop, we place the focus on how public authorities can help activate the industries’ potential for their region and drive innovation in the framework of the quadruple helix?

Is a Nordic Baltic common policy approach to food system resilience possible? RegioFoodS (FutureFoodS Partnerhsip) project organises this debate session to set up the scene and dynamically discuss long–term regional food systems resilience and preparedness in the Nordics and Baltics. Recognizing the siloed sectoral approach to food policies, in our session 4 experts coming from Nordic and Baltic countries - and belonging to the academic and policy making sectors-  f will constructively interactamong themselves and the audience, in a debate presenting different viewpoints.

This interactive session explores spatial resilience as a strategic response to overlapping crises in the Baltic Sea Region. Building on the VASAB Ministerial Tallinn Declaration on Spatial Resilience and VASAB Polish Chairmanship priorities, it translates policy goals into territorial insights, highlights governance gaps and outlines spatial planning aspects of resilience. After a keynote by Tiit Oidjärv, participants join a World Café to discuss four dimensions of resilience and how they can be measured and applied in practice.

This session will focus on the needs of different maritime sectors and interests to maritime spatial planning (MSP), covering the environmental, socio-economic and cultural perspectives. The cross-cutting question underpinning the discussions is how to ensure resilience in MSP across the Baltic Sea region? The output will feed into the development of the regional strategic environmental assessment (SEA) framework being developed under the Interreg-BSR funded platform project SEABAS.

How can the Baltic Sea Region move from consuming AI to building its own trusted solutions? This interactive session brings together science, startups, and public authorities to explore “Local Value” in AI: from public procurement and open innovation to regional AI sandboxes. Through a co-creation format, participants will shape practical tools for digital sovereignty, resilience, and cross-border AI cooperation in the BSR.

“Mind the Gap” addresses the key challenge in cross-border co-operation the Baltic Sea Region: the persistent gap between the local and regional level and the EU level. In BSR several cross-border cooperation platforms are working as silo-breakers and intermediaters that can fill the gap. The session looks for new ways to use the cross-border platforms as a tool to overcome challenges and jointly with the EU Strategy for the BSR, make the macro-region more unified, resilient and sustainable.