The main objective of Action Planning Networks is to bring together between 7 and 10 cities across Europe to exchange their experience in a particular thematic urban development challenge and to share their ideas about possible solutions, during a period of over 2 years. The Phase 1 (from late June 2019 to February 2020) focused on the development of baseline studies, city profiles and the production of the Application Form for Phase 2.

Following the Monitoring Committee's approval of the networks, cities are now ready to focus on the exchange and learning activities using a range of learning tools and approaches in line with the URBACT Method. Every partner city will consolidate an URBACT Local Group, which will co-design Integrated Action Plans for future implementation. The Phase 2 also presents a novelty for the projects, from now on cities are encouraged to undertake pilot actions (Small Scale Actions), to experiment with new ideas for projects gained from other network exchanges and in line with the cities’ network topic.

As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the URBACT Secretariat will follow up with a series of adapted activities to support these networks and their partners, including the delivery of trainings using online formats and a 3 months extension of the network life-cycle, meaning that projects will run until August 2022. Thus, networks will respect the following calendar:

• Activation Stage (May - December 2020): putting together an Integrated Action Plan roadmap
• Planning Actions (December 2020 - December 2021): drafting the Integrated Action Plan
• Planning Implementation (December 2021 - June 2022): finalising the Integrated Action Plan
• Integrated Action Plans Finale (June - August 2022): sharing knowledge

You can find all approved networks in the table below, the Lead Partner city is indicated is bold. To find out more about each one of the projects, check the network's webpages.
Congratulations to the 23 approved projects!

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Interested in finding more about the approved networks and what they will do? Watch the URBACT Method video and check out the Action Planning Network's infographic!

Cities are turning to hackathon-style events to spark new business, generate policy ideas, and co-create innovative urban solutions. But do they really work? We put the question to urban innovation experts and municipal staff in five URBACT cities… and came up with the answer: “Yes, if you include the right people, adapt the format to your needs, and provide follow-up support to winning ideas.”

But first… what the hack is a hackathon?

“Hackathons are intense events where bright minds work in teams to tackle a challenge over a relatively short period of time,” says Jim Sims, Lead expert, URBACT BluAct Transfer network. “They generally involve businesspeople, technologists, marketing people, data engineers, designers and randomly selected people – wildcards – working together to solve common challenges.”

Hackathons were originally developed for teams of coders; one produced Facebook’s famous “Like” button. But today their scope goes way beyond tech. These one to three day brainstorming events are held by all sorts of organisations, including city halls, to create ideas and build targeted solutions.  

The spirit of Alex F. Osborn’s 1939 “brainstorm sessions” lives on in hackathons today. His participants tackled a creative problem “in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective”. They avoided judgment and collected wild ideas. “The greater the number of ideas, the more likelihood of winners.”

Hackathons: a good thing for cities?

“When a hackathon works it’s a win-win-win solution that shakes minds, develops new ideas and changes the mindsets of institutions,” says Francois Jégou, Lead expert, URBACT BioCanteens Transfer network.

Well-run hackathons help boost innovation as part of a broader business development programme – especially in cities lacking entrepreneurship and youth.

Around ports, for example, hackathons can generate ideas in areas as diverse as sea rescue applications, smart ports, shipping, GPS technology, underwater data, even ocean tourism, fashion or food. For Sims, “They provide a really interesting mechanism to crash together different sectors that wouldn’t ordinarily work together, like a slightly more traditional marine and maritime sector together with a more cutting edge, fledgling ICT sector.”

Cites also use hackathons to co-create urban solutions, and improve policymaking. With colleagues of all levels, future partners and stakeholders, says Jégou, hackathons “quickly shake up ideas, spontaneity, excitement, for people who may’ve been just looking at each other for years, especially in public administration.”

And then there are the big-buzz events like Hack Belgium, that Jégou describes as “three creative days to experience hackathon excitement… without expecting real output”.

Pitfalls

Let’s be realistic, says Mario Laghi from Cesena (IT), in the URBACT BeePathNet Transfer network, “It’s very hard to organise a really effective hackathon, especially with the expectation of coming out with smart, innovative, easy-to-realise, ready-to-market ideas. Especially the long-lasting results are very hard to be pursued even when the level of actors and participants is very high.”

Some hackathons suffer by setting a challenge too broad, complex, or poorly defined. Others have been blamed for rewarding easier-to-pitch solutions, or more competitive personalities. Meanwhile, some cities later regret not involving moderators, tech people, schools or inspiring entrepreneurs.

The key pitfall is that when participants head home, their freshly created solutions disappear. “There are plenty of hackathons where people come up with interesting ideas that never make it to market,” warns Sims.

Even when winning creative teams do get quality incubation services, mentoring and finance, they don’t always stay as enthusiastic as their mentors.

So, how are URBACT cities making the most of hackathons?

“URBACT accompanies cities who are innovating in many aspects of governance, and there’s an increasing interest in hackathons. How do they ensure they’re useful, and adapted to policy questions?” says Nuala Morgan, head of URBACT’s Capitalisation and Communication Unit.

Let’s visit five cities in ongoing URBACT III transfer networks to find out.

1. Mouans-Sartoux (FR): BioCanteens mini-hackathon techs up local policy

BioCanteens partner cities held their own three-hour mini-hackathon “mind opening” exercise in smart city Trikala (EL) in October 2019. Teams each devised an app supporting sustainable school canteens – traditionally a rather low-tech sector – and illustrated its use. They pitched their ideas to each other, ending with feedback.

Hackathon first-timer Thibaud Lalanne returned to Mouans-Sartoux having outlined an app linking consumers with local organic producers. But more importantly he’d learnt “to take into account my local objectives, local constraints, local challenges, and see how digital solutions could be integrated.”

Lalanne says this improved digital awareness is helping Mouans-Sartoux prepare a “smart food strategy”, with expertise and support from the European Commission's Preparatory Action on Smart Rural Areas in the 21st Century.

“We were energised: It was a great way to start from fuzzy ideas and come up with some very interesting prototypes, at high speed,” says Lalanne, whose municipal farm supplies schools with organic produce.

2. Cesena (IT): Hackathon alternative to help boost local bee businesses

“How can local honey and bee products compete with cheaper mass produced imports?” To find innovative-yet-realistic solutions to this complex challenge, BeePathNet partner city Cesena is preparing a five-step series of idea jams.

Their upcoming “BeePath Jam” features four sub-topics: storytelling; short supply chains; product branding; strategic vision for the beekeepers’ association. Multidisciplinary teams will tackle one or more topics over the course of five workshops, presenting their solutions in a sixth, final event.

Each team is to include a beekeeper, together with entrepreneurs and students in IT, environmental science, food science, agriculture, design or architecture.

“We’re stressing collaboration, but there’s also competition: in the end the most suitable solution will be selected, and the association of beekeepers is really interested to go ahead with implementation. So we need to give time to these co-creation groups to define real complex and integrated solutions,” says Saveria Teston, who coordinates the URBACT Local Group building the event. ULG members include the agricultural college, Bologna University, Cesenalab business incubator, regional innovation consortium ART-ER – and AFA beekeepers association.

BeePath Jam builds on Cesena’s legacy of start-up events sparking new product ideas, from a crop-disease reduction app to protein superfood candies.

3. Burgas (BG): Student hackathon enhances port city start-up competition

Burgas joined BluAct to learn from Piraeus’ (EL) Blue Growth Initiative – a competition offering local business incubation services that has triggered 20 start-ups and 55 new jobs since 2014.

Linked to the competition, the Bla

Burgas municipality’s Mariya Burulyanova says, “We familiarised participants with the concept of blue economy and how their ideas will be useful for the city of Burgas.”

“It was a very successful event with fresh, smart ideas of young people who are very keen to work on this subject,” adds Georgi Sakaliev, Burgas municipality.

In April, three innovative proposals will win up to 2500 euros, a trip to learn from Piraeus maritime entrepreneurs, and incubation support from partners like Burgas Port and other local businesses.

With strong local political support “Burgas Blues” competition looks set to become a regular event.

4. Galati (RO): Local businesses support new Danube Growth Initiative hackathons

The Danube port city of Galati is also organising a Piraeus-inspired entrepreneurship competition, with business support and a final pitch event in April 2020. Like Burgas, Galati’s pitch event will feature hackathon participants alongside entrepreneurs who apply online.

But while Burgas built on an established annual university hackathon, Galati created two business ideation hackathons from scratch – a first for the city – thanks to “a core of very involved, highly interested professionals that formed Galati’s URBACT Local Group (ULG) from various sectors: universities, ship designers, banking system, NGOs and IT,” says Galati municipality’s Carmen Ana Ariton-Bejan.

Attending the December 2019 hackathon, Galati mayor Ionuț-Florin Pucheanu congratulated such cooperation between the municipality, academics and local business.

At each event 24 young entrepreneurs teamed up to create sustainable business ideas in advanced infrastructure, software development, emissions reduction, advanced manufacturing technologies, or energy efficiency systems.

ULG members’ feedback gave “a glimpse into the inner workings of the private sector and on running a business in our city,” says Prof Camelia Vizireanu, ULG Coordinator. “Hackathons are a good way to stop the braindrain in Galati by giving entrepreneurs the chance of developing and testing their ideas in a ‘safe space’.”

5. Ostend (BE): Local pitch event builds on Hack Belgium

At Hack Belgium 2018, the City of Ostend discovered many Ostenders working on sea-related topics, from tourism to high-tech innovation. On joining BluAct, Ostend connected those

Support continued post-hackathon. “Thanks to BluAct we had a bigger, stronger local network so we could also take back ideas from Hack Belgium and further build on them in Ostend,” says City of Ostend’s Astrid Vanackere.

Ostend invited interested hackathon participants to its own blue economy competition, with a pitch event in March. After an online assessment and follow-up, nine teams are set to pitch innovative ideas to a jury of ULG members. Vanackere says this event will start the incubation phase and help tailor business guidance to the needs of each project.

The Paris Agreement covers greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance. Its  terms were finalised at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21, held in Paris, France. It was signed in 2016. The 196 participating countries agreed to a global pact, called the Paris Agreement or Paris Protocol, to reduce their carbon output "as soon as possible”. They also committed to do their best to keep global warming "to well below 2 degrees C” compared to pre-industrial levels. Countries also agreed to "pursue efforts to" limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C where possible. The 1.5 °C goal will require zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050, and this is what is driving cities to take action now.

Cities and energy consumption

In 1900, just 13% of the global population lived in cities. By 2015, the figure was more than 50%.  So it is not surprising that it is cities where most of the world’s population live. This explains why   around 70% of total global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions comes from urban areas.

Some cities are already well advanced in their implementation of Net Zero Energy processes.  For example, Copenhagen has a plan to become a Net Zero Energy city by 2025 .  But Copenhagen has been at the forefront of sustainable urban policies for many decades.  What about other cities - “typical cities” - whose experience of implementing environmental policies is less developed? 

The URB-EN PACT Project

URB-EN PACT is a partnership project for “typical” European cities, not just those that are well advanced in achieving energy sustainability. The Project’s partners are diverse in terms of their geographic location, size, demographic profile, industry profile, and experience of implementing energy efficient measures.  The nine partners represent seven European nations, each of which has distinctive energy policies and energy mix. This can be seen clearly from the following table that provides summary data for each partner.

The diversity of the partners is a key strength of the project. It ensures that the challenges faced by quite different city regions in reaching Net Zero status can be assessed. For example, at least one of the partners has a steel-making plant (carbon generator) within its boundary while another has a large urban forest (carbon sink). The profile of stakeholders who must be engaged in each of these cities will be very different.  Having the opportunity to develop and test a process that is applicable to both of these cities will make the project output more robust.

Broad Stakeholder Engagement is essential

The scope or reach of the URB-EN PACT project is wide. The partners are focused on how energy is produced as well as consumed. They wish to stimulate a greater awareness of energy issues within their populations and to develop a culture of energy conservation amongst all consumer types (citizens and industry).  Like COP21, URB-EN PACT recognises that it is essential for there to be a ‘pact’ between all of the cities’ stakeholders - focusing on one group or area will not lead to the required sustainable change.

URB-EN PACT’s goals include reducing demand for energy by both industry and citizens while also identifying how to replace fossil fuel generation with renewable sources.  Each city’s energy mix will be unique to their needs and available resources.  Already we have seen innovative solutions such as generating bio-gas from waste.

URB-EN PACT will also focus on activities that minimise our broader environmental impact. Thus, carbon reduction and circular economy principles will be included within its scope.

Although very early in the process, the kick-off meeting helped identify immediate areas of experience, which the partners could share.  These included high efficiency street lighting, hydrogen for mobility, commercialising University research, community energy production, energy storage, citizen engagement and district heating enhancements. After just two City Visits, we have a range of suggestions for Small Scale Actions.

Active Engagement of Civic Leaders

The project recognises the central role that strong civic leadership plays in driving change.  We are looking at how the partners’ Mayors can be engaged individually and collectively in an innovative way. URB-EN PACT is shaping up to be a very interesting project!