The research assignment for the North Sea Port project was an assignment for ITEM from the Province of Zeeland and the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations. On April 17th ITEM presented its findings during a boat tour from Ghent to Terneuzen. 

North Sea Port has been in existence since 2018 and is a cross-border merger of the ports of Ghent and Zeeland. The objective of this cross-border merger is to strengthen the port's international position and increase its competitiveness. 

ITEM has conducted research into the challenges of cross-border entrepreneurship and has made an inventory of the bottlenecks related to regulation in cooperation between the Netherlands and Flanders. This inventory will serve as a basis for the exploration of possible legal solutions, including the promising potential of the Benelux instruments and the option for legal experiments. 

In the study, a distinction was made between, on the one hand, bottlenecks that were mentioned by the experts of the port authority and that were experienced today as an obstructing factor. On the other hand, further bottlenecks have been described that could also be detrimental to the development of not only the company, but also the development of the entire port area. ITEM researcher Martin Unfried presented these findings during the event of 17 April.