From 10 January to 20 March 2024, URBACT is running a call for the next generation of Innovation Transfer Networks (ITNs). These networks aim to transfer projects that were funded under Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) to other cities across the EU, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.  

What’s in it for cities?

Through the ITNs, it’s up to the cities who received UIA funding from 2016 to 2023 to act as Lead Partners and to transfer their experience, know-how and advice to cities interested in implementing a similar project. Using the URBACT transfer methodology – Understand, Adapt and Re-use – project partners will create a deeper, three-dimensional understanding of the UIA original practice. Ultimately, the cities in these networks will improve their capacity to design innovative solutions in an integrated and participatory way and identify funding for implementation.

Listen to experts Eddy Adams and Matthew Baqueria-Jackson discuss the Understand, Adapt, Reuse method:

Over a two-year period, through an organised process of exchange and learning among peers, the project partners will work together to develop a tailor-made investment plan for the implementation of the innovation project. This will be done with the support of URBACT experts and anchored by a group of local stakeholders in each city (URBACT Local Group) that gathers different profiles from within and outside the local administration. 

In a nutshell, cities involved in this type of networks should expect… 

Putting innovation transfer to the test

Replicating innovation is never easy, but between 2021 and 2022, five pilot innovation transfer networks were tasked with testing the URBACT transfer method. Twenty cities in total were involved in these five networks, each one of them led by a city who had implemented an UIA project. 

The pilot’s final evaluation proved the URBACT transfer method to be successful, shedding light on some important points to consider:

•    Breaking down the UIA practice

A transferable project is one that can be easily modularised. UIA projects are large, complex strategic interventions designed for a specific territory. While wholesale transfer is a rarity, it helps if you can break it down into its core parts. In most of the pilot networks, partners had a pre-defined list of components, which enabled them to select those that would work best in different local contexts. An analysis of the assets and barriers, produced by the network expert, helped guide these choices.

For instance, Rotterdam (NL) was able to adapt an investment plan developed by Birmingham (UK) through the USE-IT! network. Rotterdam customised tools and methods in Birmingham’s investment plan to support the development of a procurement hub for neighbourhood work-cooperatives. Involvement in USE-IT! has also had a profound impact upon partnership working in Rotterdam with enhanced relationships between the Municipality, the Voor Goed Agency that promotes social entrepreneurship, and the Social Impact Fond Rotterdam.

Nevertheless, there are risks that come with modularising. It may be challenging for partners to fully understand each component and reject one or more potentially impactful modules. To mitigate this, most networks offered the option of modules, but included amongst these one which all partners would agree to transfer. 

●    Building back up

The point has already been made about the importance of chunking up large strategic innovation projects. Think of it like an engineer, dismantling a machine to better understand how all the component parts work – so long as you remember where everything goes when you reassemble it! 

This approach is also helpful when transfer partners do not have the scale of funding available. They can pick those elements which they are confident of being able to finance. The risk to be aware of here is that partners may select elements which are easier, or cheaper, and potentially less innovative.

Stepping stones on the transfer path

The URBACT transfer method is composed of different milestones that pave the way to the transfer. The first important milestone is the transferability study. This is composed of information, data, and figures around the topic of the UIA project that are gathered following visits to each network city and with discussions with the city administration, elected officials but also other relevant stakeholders outside the city administration. All the data gathered and analysed constitute a baseline for each city, but they also indicate the transfer potential of each city, with strengths and weaknesses that need to be further worked on. This transferability study becomes the reference for the way forward in terms of network activities and learning points before the actual transfer. 

Other milestones include capacity-building activities organised by the URBACT Secretariat, trainings with tools or thematic sessions and events like the URBACT City Festival which is a source of inspiration for cities. 

Finally, the main tangible result of each project partner is an investment plan that features all the necessary resources and steps to follow for the implementation of the UIA practice (partly or fully). 

Show me the money

Transferring innovative urban solutions is very rarely a copy-and-paste process. A degree of adaptation and reuse is still needed for genuine transformation. Reuse requires resources – people, plans and, most crucially, funding.

A new feature for the upcoming networks, cities will also have the possibility of testing actions with a small budget before including them in the investment plan.

At the end of the five pilot networks, more than three-quarters of partners said that they would transfer at least 50% of the original UIA innovation concept. The survey also showed that 15% of the partners already had secured funds for this, whilst almost half were confident that their transfer plans would be funded by the time the pilot concluded. 

So, where do you sign up?

If this article has whetted your appetite, then you might like to know how your city can get involved. 

If you are a city interested in becoming a transfer partner, you can connect here from 10 January and find the necessary resources on how you can apply by 20 March 2024.  

And don’t forget to sign up for the URBACT newsletter and follow us @URBACT to get updates. 

We look forward to welcoming you to the URBACT community, 

The URBACT team

Special thanks to Eddy Adams for bringing together the findings of the evaluation of the previous pilot networks in this article.

How can cities sustain urban regeneration efforts in times of austerity? How can they encourage people to work together on projects to revive their local area, instead of competing for grants? These are just two of the big challenges that authorities still face despite a long history of EU policies tackling urban poverty. URBACT expert Iván Tosics investigates two cities that are adopting new, community-based approaches to urban renewal – thanks to inspiration from URBACT partner cities.

Fighting urban poverty

URBACT’s links with EU policies fighting urban poverty go back a long way: the programme itself grew as a collaboration programme for cities that applied the URBAN Community Initiative, back in 2002. More recently, the main aspects of area-based policies were discussed during URBACT’s 2020 conference in Porto (PT), with a ‘City Lab’ focused on the spatial dimension of city interventions.

During the City Lab, representatives of EU cities highlighted two types of problems linked to area-based interventions. One of these is that the policies, institutional frameworks and funding conditions of area-based interventions are mostly determined at national level, giving cities relatively little room to make their own choices. The other refers to the limits of real involvement of residents: usually formal governments hold most decision-making powers regarding deprived areas, without giving real powers to citizens on the essential decisions about urban renewal in their own neighbourhood.

The Covid-19 crisis broke out only a few weeks after URBACT’s Porto conference. Although at first sight ‘everyone was affected’ by the lockdown policies, it quickly became clear that the most affected have been those who were already at risk of poverty and exclusion. People’s resilience capacities are in strong correlation with their incomes, employment and housing conditions – as described in our earlier article, ‘Urban poverty and the pandemic’.

Experimenting with stronger involvement of residents

It is no wonder that under such conditions, cities are looking for new approaches to support their poor residents and poverty-stricken neighbourhoods. There is a growing understanding that top-down policies, even if designed with the best will by the local government, on their own, rarely achieve lasting results in terms of improving the lives of residents. The limited success of traditional forms of area-based policies brought up this key question: “How can efficiency be raised through more structured and stronger involvement of residents in the design and implementation of neighbourhood renewal programmes?”

During the online 2021 URBACT City Festival, the session Leave No One Behind - Dealing With Priority Neighbourhoods was an opportunity to hear directly from cities experimenting new types of participation policies. Lille (FR) and Birmingham (UK) are two particularly interesting examples.

Lille: newly designed grant system for poor areas

Lille was one of eight partner cities in the URBACT Com.Unity.Lab network, transferring good practice from Lisbon (PT), while Birmingham was partner in the URBACT URBAN REGENERATION MIX network, transferring good practice from Łódź (PL).

Lille Métropole (comprising 95 municipalities) is an active partner of the French ‘Politique de la Ville’ policy. The 26 priority neighbourhoods assigned in the area concern more than 200 000 inhabitants, i.e. one sixth of the overall population of the metropolis. Lille’s ‘Politique de la Ville’ programme is based on a city contract signed by 50 partners. Within this framework, an important element is the grant system: each year EUR 40 million is spent on calls for proposals, funding 1 000 projects in different fields, including economic development, education, sports, culture, and living conditions.

The original, URBACT good practice of Lisbon is very complex, involving four different elements. Lille joined the Com.Unity.Lab Transfer Network with the aim of transferring the ‘Grant’ element of Lisbon’s good practice, in order to improve its own system. The most important innovation refers to the way the grants are applied.

Diagnoses showed that the usual forms of call for proposals are not functioning optimally in Lille, being very competitive, and excluding vital cooperation between stakeholders. Lisbon’s call for proposal system requires at least two entities to apply together, which enhances cooperation in neighbourhoods. Although this is a step forward, the system of calls for proposals in itself might not be the best tool to achieve the involvement of the residents, as it focuses on money issues, while many initiatives need other types of support such as loans for premises or equipment, or skills improvements. As a consequence, Lille was looking for other methods to help local stakeholders, in order to strengthen interest in civic participation, community life and internally generated development.  

Identifying local potential

Lille has modified its traditional ‘call for proposals’ system in two ways: besides requiring at least two entities to apply together, the other idea is to strengthen the qualitative elements, by offering institutional help to the stakeholders through design thinking. Instead of a simple call for proposals in the assigned neighbourhoods, organisers ask the question: “What does your area need?” In fact, a ‘project factory’ is organised, building on local workshops, listening to people’s ideas. In Lille, this is being set up with guidance and ideas from Francois Jégou, URBACT expert and head of Strategic Design Scenarios.

Such workshops help to attract new partners from the neighbourhood, including the private sector, groups of residents, and additional NGOs. The workshops promote more participatory development, enabling informal groups of inhabitants to participate in projects. Additionally, they also foster projects that can reach financial sustainability. The new approach is currently being experimented, with design workshops in two selected municipalities.

Lille transferred the good practice of Lisbon in an innovative way, creating a new dynamic in a pilot phase that is set to last for two more years. The aim is then to roll out the method to other areas of Lille Métropole, with precise conditions determining how many organisations have to be included. It remains to be seen to what extent this institutional innovation modifies the Politique de la Ville programme itself.

Birmingham: empowering community representatives to become mediators

Birmingham was partner in the URBACT URBAN REGENERATION MIX network, transferring good practice from Łódź – particularly on appointing mediators in the process of urban renewal.

Birmingham was hit hard by the great financial crisis and the following drastic national austerity measures. Severe budget reductions led to a 50% cut in Birmingham City Council’s workforce. The Regeneration Team was among the first to be disbanded. As a result, nearly all regeneration projects stopped, except for ‘housing renewal’, driven by private developers and focused on capital investment, with little funding for associated social projects.

This financial austerity at local government level contrasts sharply with the rapid growth of Birmingham’s population: a predicted 80 000 more homes will be needed by 2032. How to do more for the growing city by a financially cramped local municipality? – this is a main challenge in the city. In such a situation, the competences of the communities have to be made strong enough to be able to operate self-sustaining actions, no longer needing permanent financial support from the public side.

In 2017, an Urban Innovative Actions-funded project USE-IT enabled a fresh approach, with an innovative partnership adding ‘human-centred’ interventions to a housing Master Plan. The new approach was continued with further innovations over the course of the URBACT URBAN REGENERATION MIX transfer network.

Empowering community mediators

Birmingham took over the spirit of the Łódź good practice, but applied it with significant changes, not having the financial means which were available to Łódź from Structural Fund resources. The original model of municipality-employed mediators was adapted to a model empowering community representatives to become mediators. Once trained, the appointed community representatives, living in the target area, become permanent ambassadors or brokers/mediators, building up trust inside the local community, communicating with the City Council, and progressively understanding the challenges of both sides. The idea of the community connector role motivates small groups of residents to take bottom-up actions, building in them a sense of community and responsibility for the space and the neighbours with whom they share it.

The project also introduced an innovative Community Economic Development Planning (CEDP) approach, encouraging local economic development that generates human wellbeing. The power to drive change rests within the community of residents, local businesses, and local service providers including councils, community groups and voluntary sector organisations with a direct stake in the area’s economic health.

The main lessons learnt by Birmingham City Council can be summarised as follows:

• Refrain from leading on initiatives and stop obsessing about outputs and leaders in the community;
• Steer away from grant dependency, open doors connecting people who wouldn’t be involved otherwise;
• Build on early wins to unlock more opportunities;
• New skillsets are needed in local authorities – more risk taking and openness for innovation.

Towards resident-led urban regeneration

Such promising experiences in Lille and Birmingham suggest that in the post-Covid period, it is high time to refresh the way Cohesion Policy helps the regeneration of priority areas. This new philosophy for area-based interventions involves activating people to find out themselves what is best for their area. Thus, regeneration plans should not be required to be ready before funding arrives – these plans should be developed in an action planning process with the strong involvement of local residents.

All this would mean, in Cohesion Policy terminology, to strengthen the Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) element in the design of area-based interventions. This was also a key element of the Local Pact policy proposal of URBACT in July 2020. The upcoming French presidency would be an ideal occasion to create debates about this novel approach and foster its application.

This article is the first in a series exploring the latest challenges in sustainable urban development, based on discussions with cities and leading experts at the 2021 URBACT City Festival. Look out for upcoming articles on topics ranging from gender in public procurement to cities tackling climate change. View recordings of festival highlights here.

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The New Leipzig Charter highlights three forms of the transformative city which can be harnessed in Europe to enhance people’s quality of life: the Just City, the Green City and the Productive City.

URBACT’s latest publication is packed with sustainable solutions to address these three dimensions – all tried, tested and transferred between EU cities, with adaptations for each local context.

To give a taste of the stories told in ‘Good Practice Transfer: Why not in my City?’, here are nine examples of local actions for Productive Cities. We hope towns and cities of all sizes will be inspired to ‘Understand, Adapt and Re-use’ participative solutions like this – from education and entrepreneurship to efficient governance and better use of urban spaces – improving everyday life for residents, and supporting a just transition to a green economy.

1. Give citizens a card for local services

To simplify everyday life in Aveiro (PT), the municipality got together with stakeholders to launch a card that will give citizens easy access to public services such as the library, museum, buses and shared bikes, as well as improved online and front desk support. A first step was to issue a student card to access school services across the city, from stationery and meals, to school trips. The idea is to promote a smarter, more open, resilient and inclusive society. Aveiro and four other URBACT partner cities are introducing their local versions of ‘CARD4ALL’ based on good practice from Gijón, a Spanish city that has provided citizen cards for nearly 20 years.

2. Put residents’ wellbeing at the heart of urban regeneration

In a project to bring an old playing field back into use, Birmingham (UK) gave local people the power to drive improvements themselves, thanks to a Community Economic Development Planning model, mirroring successful approaches already used in Łódź (PL). Building on this positive start, residents went on to co-produce an alternative Community-Led Master Plan for the wider area — where all council plans had previously been opposed. Council-appointed community ‘ambassadors’ now work with local residents, businesses, service providers and volunteers with a direct stake in the area’s economic health. And the approach is being rolled out across other areas of the city. Birmingham is one of six cities to learn from Łódź’ collaborative model as part of the URBAN REGENERATION MIX network.

3. Create a digital business hub with a local twist 

The Greek city of Piraeus founded a new ‘Blue Lab’ near its harbour — the first Blue Economy Innovation Centre in Greece. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, Blue Lab welcomes students and entrepreneurs, providing business mentoring, tech and entrepreneurship training. It has boosted cooperation with businesses and schools, and sparked an array of prototype technology solutions. Piraeus’ further plans now include a new larger co-working space, training facilities to upskill the workforce, and investment in more advanced technologies. Piraeus is one of six URBACT Tech Revolution network partner cities to set up their own start-up support schemes based on the Digital Media Centre in Barnsley (UK), an URBACT-listed Good Practice that has become a successful hub for local creative and digital business.

4. Build local partnerships around education

By involving parents, school staff, local clubs and council departments in ‘Educational Innovation Networks’ (EIN), the city of Halmstad (SE) is boosting local connections and sparking improvements in education. Thanks to the URBACT ON BOARD network, Halmstad learnt from Viladecans (ES) who originally formed an EIN to improve education as part of a drive to reverse rising unemployment and declining growth. Halmstad adopted new ideas, including ‘Positive Mindset and Emotions’ for better learning and methods for improving pupil participation. Communication within the municipality also improved thanks to cross-departmental clusters focusing on: Care and Support; Education and Learning; Growth and Attractiveness; and Infrastructure.

5. Open a ‘living room’ for local clubs and residents

Idrija (SI) transformed an empty shop into a ‘living room’ for the town, with free activities run by, and for, local associations and inhabitants. City administrators, social services and economic departments, local clubs and active citizens, are all involved in the project, as well as the regional development agency, library and retirement home. As a result, the site has become a meeting place open to all, with events focusing on topics as diverse as housing refurbishment, chess, and knitting. It also hosts a municipality-supported free transport service for elderly people and a book corner run by the local library. Idrija’s solution was modelled on the ‘Stellwerk’ NGO platform launched in Altena (DE) as a solution to help manage the town’s long-term decline.

6. Turn unused buildings into homes

Chemnitz’s (DE) ‘Housing Agency for Shrinking Cities’ helps transform empty buildings into valuable housing while reducing speculation, channeling grant money, and cutting future costs for both the owners of decaying buildings and the municipality. Initiated and funded by the city authorities, the project is carried out in the public interest by a long-standing private partner. This model inspired Vilafranca del Penedès (ES), partner in the URBACT ALT/BAU network, to review its housing policies and look for private partners with the technical capacity and financial solvency to help the city recover abandoned housing units. As a result, Vilafranca has signed an agreement with a social foundation whose main objective is to identify, obtain and rehabilitate low-priced rental housing in collaboration with job agencies.

7. Launch a blue entrepreneurship competition (for cities near water!) 

The port city of Mataró (ES) is boosting local entrepreneurship and jobs in the maritime economy – inspired by a BlueGrowth initiative in Piraeus (EL). Mataró encouraged diverse public and private stakeholders to get involved, including the City Promotion team, regional ‘Barcelona Nautic Cluster’, local port authority, and a technology park that hosts the University and a business incubator. The resulting Mataró Blue Growth Entrepreneurship competition provides cash prizes, mentoring and access to a business accelerator programme. So far winning projects include a boat repair franchise, a boat propulsion system, and an app linking up superyachts with relevant services.

8. Help city employees become innovators

When Turin (IT) teamed up with private sponsors to launch a competition inviting 10 000 municipal staff to submit innovative ideas for improving the administration's performance, winning proposals included solutions for improving community participation, smart procurement, and lighting in public buildings. This inspired Rotterdam (NL) and five other cities in the URBACT Innovato-R network to draw on Turin’s experience to boost innovation and process improvement in their own cities. As a result, Rotterdam took a fresh approach with its existing innovation network of over 1 800 civil servants and 500 external stakeholders, strengthening links with businesses and academics, introducing new online ‘inspiration sessions’, and co-designing a new innovation platform.

9. Harness the power of public spending 

Koszalin (PL) analysed the city’s procurement spending and is using the resulting evidence to shape public procurement practices in order to benefit the local economy, while taking into account social and environmental factors. To do so, they used a spend analysis tool that was originally developed by Preston (UK) and transferred to six EU cities via the URBACT Making Spend Matter network. Koszalin also started working more closely with key ‘anchor institutions’ in the city, such as the hospital and university, exploring how much they spend, and where that money goes geographically. Meanwhile, they improved support for local SME participation in public procurement.

Find out more about these and many more sustainable city solutions – in the new URBACT publication ‘Good Practice Transfer: Why not in my City?’.

Visit the Good Practice database for more inspiration.