QREN

The National Strategic Reference Framework (Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional – QREN) assumes, as the major strategic purpose, the qualification of the Portuguese people, valuing knowledge, science, technology, and innovation, as well as the promotion of high and sustained levels of economic and socio-cultural development and territorial qualification, within a framework of valuing equal opportunities and, as well, increasing the efficiency and quality of public institutions.

Pursuing this great strategic plan is essential to ensure the overcoming of the most significant constraints to the consolidation of a sustained and successful dynamic in the process of economic, social, and territorial development in Portugal.

This scope seeks to be ensured through the implementation, with the support of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, for all the Operational Programs, in the period 2007-2013, of three major Thematic Operational Agendas, which focus on three essential areas of intervention, the potential human being, the competitiveness factors of the economy and the enhancement of the territory: 

• Operational Agenda for Human Potential, which brings together the set of interventions aimed at promoting the educational and professional qualifications of the Portuguese and the promotion of employment and social inclusion, as well as the conditions for the enhancement of gender equality and full citizenship. This Agenda integrates the following main areas of intervention: Initial Qualification, Adaptability and Lifelong Learning, Management and Professional Improvement, Advanced Training for Competitiveness, Support for Entrepreneurship and the Transition to Active Life, Citizenship, Inclusion and Development Social and also the Promotion of Gender Equality.
• Operational Agenda for Competitiveness Factors, which covers interventions aimed at stimulating the qualification of the people, through innovation, technological development and the encouragement of entrepreneurship, as well as the improvement of the various components of the business activity environment, with emphasis for the reduction of public costs of context. This Agenda comprises, as the main vectors of intervention, Stimuli for the Production of Knowledge and Technological Development, Incentives for Innovation and Renewal of the Business Model and the Specialization Standard, Financial Engineering Instruments for Financing and Risk Sharing in Innovation, Integrated Interventions for the Reduction of Public Context Costs, Collective Actions for Business Development, Stimulus to the Development of the Information Society, Networks and Infrastructures to Support Regional Competitiveness, and also Integrated Actions for the Economic Enhancement of Less Competitive Territories.
• Operational Agenda for the Enhancement of the Territory which, aiming to provide the country and its regions and sub-regions with better conditions of attractiveness for productive investment and living conditions for the populations, includes interventions of an infrastructural and endowment nature essential equipment for the qualification of territories and the strengthening of economic, social and territorial cohesion. This Agenda includes as main areas of intervention the Strengthening of International Connectivity, Accessibilities and Mobility, Protection and Enhancement of the Environment, City Policy and, also, Infrastructure and Equipment Networks for Territorial and Social Cohesion.