The 41st meeting of the IQ-Net network took place on 21-23 November 2016 in Athens and was hosted by the Greek Ministry of Economy and Development - National Coordination Authority and the Management Organisation Unit (MOU).

The main themes of the conference were: “Making Structural Funds smart and recognised: Implementing Smart Specialisation Strategies. Exploiting the potential of publicity and communication”.

The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the challenges of implementing Smart Specialisation Strategies as well as Cohesion policy communication and publicity. In addition, an overview was given of the progress of the 2014-2020 programmes in partner regions and countries, of the remaining issues with bringing the 2007-2013 programmes to closure, as well as of the state-of-play of the discussion about the future of Cohesion policy post-2020.