As part of the URBACT Innovation Transfer Networks (ITNs), partners are looking to transfer successful Innovative Actions (IA) projects from ten cities across Europe.These are often large, complex, strategic initiatives. As you might expect, the process of adaptation and replication is a tricky one, and in response URBACT has developed a series of techniques to support this. One is modularising the innovations: breaking them into components which can help transfer cities to adapt them to their own context. Just like you’d do if you were ever foolish enough to try and eat an elephant. Another is providing space to test small scale actions on the ground.
URBACT has always been a sandbox for experimentation. Participating cities are encouraged to try new things and to develop fresh ways of working. Within the ITN framework, cities have space to design and implement testing actions to inform their transfer journey. These small scale activities offer a number of potential benefits at the city level. These include:
- Giving the network some local visibility
- Helping secure stakeholder participation and buy-in
- Providing quick wins at the local level
- Encouraging an innovation mindset within municipalities
In the context of innovation transfer, testing actions can also provide proof of concept. This is an opportunity to check whether a new intervention - in this case one developed elsewhere - can work in another local context.
Responding to the Youth Crisis
Partners in the WISH-CITIES ITN are focused on improving youth wellbeing. Inspired by the IA project implemented by the City of Milan, they are exploring innovative ways of making young people’s lives better. At a time when levels of child poverty are rising across the EU and in the midst of what is increasingly described as a poor mental health epidemic amongst the young, their work could not be more timely.
The Milan package of innovative interventions supporting young people included the mobilisation of Ambassadors, the establishment of neighbourhood hubs and the introduction of a voucher system. This supported access to services, as well as enabling the co-design of new ones, mobilising service providers and users.
As a network, WISH-CITIES is a two way street. By this, we mean that in addition to the Lead Partner’s list of effective innovations, the network partners bring a complementary menu of services. This includes youth forums, participatory budgets and sophisticated co-design models. Partners will mix and match these modules to create their own approach, which will be set out in their eventual Transfer Plans. In advance of that, their testing actions can help inform their next steps, by generating valuable experience and data.
So, what’s being tested…?
The scope for testing actions within URBACT is wide. It can include temporary interventions, the design and testing of new products and services, and targeted capacity building. In some cases it includes events, research and new data gathering methods.
WISH-CITIES partners have used this opportunity to ask questions and to further their knowledge. The range and diversity of their approaches has been refreshing. Here are a few examples to give you a better picture.
The city of Cartagena, Spain, which hosts the network’s transnational event in November 2025, has a strong track record of prioritising children and young people. A UNESCO City of Children, its infrastructure includes a well-established Youth Assembly and a participative youth budget. However, the age ceiling for participation is 18, and Cartagena would like to extend this, enabling participants to stay connected to the process. Through the autumn of 2025 they will test their hypothesis and explore potential ways to retain the active involvement of young people over the age of eighteen.
In neighbouring Portugal, another highly experienced city, Vila Nova de Gaia, is testing its own assumptions about the services young people need. As the national youth capital 2025, it has a well-developed infrastructure supporting children and young people. This has evolved over many years, and its highly impressive new youth strategy (link) seeks to build upon this.
Despite all this, the city’s youth team wants to further improve the way in which young people can shape their services. To enable this, they will use the testing actions opportunity to provide a free physical space in the city, where children and young people are invited to propose its uses. They hope the testing actions will identify gaps in provision, and strengthen the city’s service co-design process.
Vila Nova de Gaia local event, image by Vila Nova de Gaia municipality
At the other end of Europe, and at the other end of experience with children and young people is the small city of Valmiera in Latvia. With a population of around 60,000, and a large rural hinterland, it is very different to the densely crowded cities on the Iberian peninsula. Valmiera also differs in the fact that it has a newly created department supporting young people, so the timing of their network participation is potentially ideal.
An important aspect of WISH-CITIES activity is to promote the voices of young people, allowing them greater agency in decision-making and empowering them as citizens. This has been the focus of Valmiera’s testing action, under the banner of Democracy Starts in the Family. This centred around an ambitious event, held in early June, where children were invited to vote for their city priorities. Participation levels were high, as 1,200 young people used this opportunity to make their voices heard.
Beyond these examples, all network partners are exploring the art of the possible. Korydallos is adopting the angle of sports and hobbies. Pori is testing the use of youth spaces. Dublin will explore the embedding of Community Youth Workers within local government, trained with a Human Learning Systems (HLS) lens whilst the Lead Partner, Milan, will look to improve their data gathering, through the direct involvement of young people.
Scaling for the end game
This important testing phase encourages action, small-scale innovation and risk taking. It also underlines the value of learning, with network cities expected to conduct a thorough evaluation of the experience, to identify lessons learned.
Across the network, the diversity and breadth of these actions will provide a valuable source of intelligence for the network partners. Where the testing actions have been successful, they can be scaled and included in partners’ final Implementation Plans. But even where the results are less positive, the lessons can be hugely informative, helping network partners avoid future mistakes, and inviting them to test design other ways to address their goals.
Learning by doing is at the heart of this. By providing a green light for testing and experimentation, URBACT is supporting culture change within municipalities. Through WISH-CITIES it is also stimulating the improved wellbeing of children and young people in Europe’s cities.
