The study visit of the Pro-I3T project to Brussels took place from the 22nd to the 24th of October. It involved 18 participants: 15 newly elected Mayors of Cypriot Municipalities, 2 Municipal Secretaries of Cypriot Municipalities and the Twinning officer of the Municipality of Idalion.

The group arrived in Brussels on the 22nd of October. The next day, the participants followed the final conference of the Pro-I3T project, which took place in the Committee of the Regions (CoR), and addressed the question of how local and regional authorities can make best use of EU funding programmes.

In the afternoon of the same day, the participants visited the Brussels Office of the Union of Cyprus Municipalities, discussed on how the Office can help them find partners and ideas for Thematic Networks and attended presentations about project management.

On the 24th of October, the participants attended the Symposium “Regions in a Globalising World: Challenges and Opportunities” and visited the European Parliament in order to be updated on the negotiations concerning the New MFF post-2013.

After the visit, the participants completed questionnaires in order to measure their degree of satisfaction for the study visit. The questionnaire asked participants to indicate how satisfied they were, based on ten criteria, related to their expectations before the visit, the structure of the program of the visit, the degree to which the visit served the purpose of the Pro-I3T project, as well as the knowledge gained from the visit.

According to the responses, the overwhelming majority of the participants were very or extremely satisfied with 9 of the 10 abovementioned criteria. Many, however, said that they had not understood the purpose of the visit before their participation (which is partly explained by the fact that many of them participated for the first time in such a visit to Brussels).