Pieter Faber is head of the EU Office of the cities Northern Netherlands, founded in May 2015. The cooperating cities in the Northern Netherlands are: Groningen, Leeuwarden, Assen and Emmen. The EU Office is situated at the House of the Dutch Provinces (Brussels). 

The EU Office cities Northern Netherlands aims to connect innovative SME's from the Northern Netherlands with the EU Working programmes on research and innovation (H2020) and financial instruments (ESFI, COSME, SME Instrument). They are the frontrunner of innovative projects related to the economic ecosystem of the cities. The cities closely work together with knowledge institutions and the regional government (provinces of Drenthe, Fryslan and Groningen). 

The approach of the EU Office is to present concrete high innovative projects in the EU context. The goal is to find partners from other regions and cities, connect them to our projects and perceive new developments and projects which can contribute to our economic challenges. We want to focus on downstream projects; realistic projects that matters for the ecosystem of the cities. With this concrete focus on the content (arise from bottom up) we want to contribute to the new policy for a competitiveness Europe.