Our Activities

Dusseldorf launched the OPENCities Photography Exhibition on 4th June 2009.  The exhibition profiles migrant workers in various European cities. 

The exhibition then visited Cardiff and Belfast in 2009 and moved onto Bilbao, Madrid and Valencia in early 2010.

The exhibition's next venue will be the House of Bamboo, Madrid Pavilion in Shanghai as part of the Shanghai Expo 2010.  The exhibition will be on display from 1st - 15th September 2010.

Sofia will host the exhibition later in the year.

Belfast City Council currently chairs the Eurocities Economic Migration Working Group.  The group has expresed an interest in the OPENCities project, particularly the theme of internationalisation. 

The partner city of Vienna was invited to present their case study to the group and further cross fertilisation is expected in the future.  The British Council also gave a presentation on the index of openness. 

The Regions for Economic Change annual conference was held on 20-21 May.  Entitled "Regions For Economic Change – Building sustainable growth", the conference had three main themes:  a) sustainable energy; b) sustainable ICT solutions and c) greening Europe's cities.

The conference included a high-profile political event with keynote speakers, politicians and practitioners discussing the future of European cohesion policy within the new EU2020 framework.  Specific thematic workshops examined the challenges, opportunities and policy responses for each of the three main themes of the conference. 

This conference will examine the role of policy in determining the outcomes of immigration and the presence of immigrants in, as well as their contribution to different societies. OPENCities will be presenting a paper in session entitled: From Cities of Migration to Open Cities; travelling with diversity towards prosperity.

On June 9 and 10, 2009 in Paris, the URBACT Secretariat will host the fourth Thematic Pole meeting dedicated to the Lead Experts and Lead Partners of URBACT II projects.

The conference will draw on the experience and work of cities that have taken part in MILE, extending this work by adding the confrontation of various perspectives from other URBACT projects who are directly concerned with migration.

"Managing Migration and Integration at local level – Cities and regions". 

The Finale Conference is the culmination of a two year exchange Fast Track Pilot Project where partners will present the project results, outputs, case studies and recommendations due to be disseminated to other European cities.

OPENCities Closing Conference 25th May Brussels - programme will be available soon.

The 5th Thematic event will be held in Nitra on 16th & 17th February 2011.  A draft programme for NITRA covering 3 areas is currently being developed by Ian Goldring the OPENCities Lead Expert. This event will have a three fold focus including an evaluation of the project to date; presentations will be made by those partners who did not present their Local Action Plans in Sofia as well as preparation for the Closing Conference to be held on 25^th May in Brussels.

The 4th thematic workshop took place in Sofia on 14th - 15th September 2010.  The purpose of the workshop was to further develop each cities local action plan and discuss and review our progress to date. 

The 3rd thematic workshop of the project took place in Poznan on 15th - 16th June 2010 around the topic of Integration and Inclusion. 

The thematic paper that forms the foundation of each of the workshops is available in our outputs section.  The conference report which details the learning will follow shortly.

The second Thematic Workshop focused on the theme on Internationalisation. 

Since entering into the implementation phase this was the first meeting of the partner cities, focusing on the theme of Leadership and Governance. 

The OPENCities project was officially launched in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast