Partner name:Aquitaine Europe Communication
Region: Aquitaine
Country: France
Website: http://www.aecom.org
Reference person: Julie Duleu-Burré

FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT THE REGION

Country: France
Total land area: 41 309 km2
Population: 2.900.000
Population density: 70 per km2
GDP of Region: EUR 66.700 million
GDP per capita: EUR 22.475
Main Cities: Bordeaux, Pau, Agen, Périgueux, Bergerac
Main Industries: aerospace industry, chemical industry, wood/paper industry, agro-food industry and electronic industry.
Regional NUTS status: NUTS 2
Objective Status: Objective 2 (partly)
Region Description:
The Region is composed by provinces ("départements") unified, according to their economic and cultural interests. The Region of Aquitaine counts five "départements": Landes, Dordogne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Lot-et-Garonne and Gironde. The regional assembly or the regional Council is elected by the direct vote for all, every six years. The executive authority of the Region is the president of the regional Council.

Its own competences relate to mainly planning, the regional planning, the economic development, the vocational training, as well as construction, the equipment and the administrative expenditures of the colleges.

Bordeaux is the regional capital city of Aquitaine. 70% of the population live in urban areas. The urban areas of Bordeaux (Gironde), Pau and Bayonne (Pyrénées Atlantiques) have a population above 150 000 inhabitants each. A network of small and medium cities covers the whole territory.

The regional territory stretches from the Atlantic coast (270 km of beaches) to the borders of Limousin, Quercy and Armagnac. Aquitaine benefits from various landscapes such as mountains, ocean, pine forests and vineyards. Aquitaine takes advantage of a performing and high-quality agriculture sector.

The tertiary sector is more developed than it is, on average, in Europe (70,3% against 65,5%). The research and innovation sector makes progress constantly.

Aquitaine has become a specialist in many activity sectors such as aerospace industries (608 companies), chemical industry, wood/paper industry, agro-food industry and electronic industry

Partner Description:
Aquitaine Europe Communication (AEC) is the Regional Agency responsible for promoting and organising the deployment of the Information Society in Aquitaine.
Created in 1996, Aquitaine Europe Communication is an initiative of the Regional Council of Aquitaine, under the auspices of the European Commission and DATAR (National Country Planning agency) with one main objective: facilitating the regional implementation of the Information Society, by promoting IT solutions to a series of target publics.

Its strategy relies on a comprehensive approach combining highly focused Information, Benchmarking and Engineering activities addressing a wide variety of user’s needs.

AEC proposes and, in some cases conducts, the development of regional IT services and infrastructure projects. While originating from Aquitaine, based upon operational solutions to the issues identified by AEC’s yearly Diagnostic of the status of Information Society in Aquitaine benchmarking exercise, many of these projects are achieved within E.U. initiatives.

AEC offers three main lines of services:

• Supplying information and strategic expertise: analysed under the Aquitaine angle, IT related information is presented through guides and newsletters (in both electronic and paper formats) as well as conferences and seminars.
• Linking Aquitaine and European Union: AEC explains and clarifies European policies and Community programmes related to the Information Society; it helps key Aquitaine actors in building up projects and finding European partners. Through its “Diagnosis of Information Society in Aquitaine” and the organisation of high level meetings, it also contributes to a better understanding of Aquitaine assets, know-how and expectations from European institutions.
• Conducting operations in partnership with public sector: AEC supports innovative projects and operations. For and on behalf its partners, it organises and steers structuring projects on both Aquitaine and European scales. Through its strategic diagnoses, it provides support to key Aquitaine players in defining their IT policies.