ProLife "The quality of life prerequisite for progress and sustainable development in the cross border area"

ProLife project is designed to provide an integrated, natural and social scientific research in order to guide towards effective, scale-sensitive policy interventions, employing appropriate governmental levels for planning, decision-making, and management. ProLife will advance understanding of natural and anthropogenic processes and their effects upon biodiversity at different scales, improve understanding on how such processes interact across scales and affect living resources. Population growth, economic development and changing regional values have intensified competition over water resources, raising issues of degrading water quality.ProLife aims to improve the quality of life promoting the joint action in protection of environmental and water resources while establishing a standard system for monitoring water quality in Prespa Lakes and ensuring safe water resources and clean environment in the Region of Western Macedonia and Valandovo. Specific objectives that the action aims to achieve are to:

  • ameliorate Stranec and Florina river corridor areas;
  • raise awareness and sensitization of the residents of the cross border area regarding the use of water as part of natural heritage with economic potential and great importance for the quality of life;
  • gather data for the living species in Prespa Lakes and dissemination on university level through establishing a standard monitoring system of water quality;
  • build a partnership between the three partners for joint initiatives toward environmental protection on the common territory.

The project’s operational objectives are:

  • To renovate the river bank of Stranec river in Valandovo including bridges, pedestrian zone and recreation park and to clean riverbeds of both Stranec and the Florina river areas;
  • To establish a comprehensive monitoring system to identify, analyze, and develop innovative policy instruments and mechanisms, to address management problems and make an information campaign promoting the local natural water resources in the border area and their effective use;
  • To test and develop ecological quality ratios by the means and standards of EU relevant Directives.
  • To assess the merits and drawbacks of national and EU policies governing water management, biodiversity conservation and anthropogenic processes relevant to the transboarder issues.
  • To assemble and integrate the recommendations for decision making, management, and applied research on water based management issues.
Schedule & Actions: 

ProLife runs a common methodological approach that ensures the link between individual and joint cross - border action, objectives that enhance and improve the results of the planed action. There is a clear distinction of each of the activities in all work packages focusing on establishment of good cooperation; achieving joint objectives of the project and sharing the knowledge and skills between the partners. The methodology approach consists of 3 phases:(1) Preparatory Phase: All partners appointed Project team members to ensure smooth implementation of the project. A communication plan will be developed to create a clear picture about the project's activities, results, outputs and timeframe.(2) Implementation phase: the Project team will coordinate between themselves and the JTC if any changes (this is important because some of the activities can't be run during winter, for example, the renovation of the riverbank of Stranec river and cleaning the riverbeds of Stranec and Florina's river areas). The project partners will select external expertise and prepare tender documents and afterwards, select the contractor to implement the sub-contracted activities. Each of the activities within the work packages is created to be coordinated by one of the partners, and to ensure mutual cooperation and participation of all the partners.(3) Reporting phase: Preparation of regular (quarterly) progress reports (5 in total), One Final Report and Expenditure verification reports.

Participating Faculty and Staff: 
Starting Date: 
2 015
Ending Date: 
2 016
Funded by: 
«Greece - the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia IPA Cross-Border programme» 2007-2013