How to find us

URBACT is present in all 27 EU Member States, Partner States and five EU Pre-accession countries – Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

In each of these countries, there is a National Authority (Ministry) involved in the URBACT Monitoring Committee, that’s in charge of the strategic orientations and decision-making of the URBACT Monitoring Committee.

In most of these countries a National URBACT Point carries communication and capacity-building activities in native language for all the cities and urban professionals.  More information is available in the following section (National URBACT Points).

National URBACT Points are in charge of communicating to cities and urban professionals of their countries in their native languages. They are represented by national ministries, city associations, universities or other private agencies. By the end of URBACT III, 24 National URBACT Points operate in 27 countries: Austria and Germany; France and Luxembourg; Greece and Cyprus having a joint National URBACT Point.

To communicate about URBACT calls for Networks, results from cities and other information on urban development, they organise infodays and use different channels – a dedicated URBACT webpage in national language (see links below), a Twitter account (@URBACT_abbreviation of the country, ie. @URBACT_PT) and other social media.

Find the complete contact list of the National URBACT Points here.

URBACT’s principles and activities have been an inspiration for many countries that have organised their own national networking schemes between cities. Although they use elements from the URBACT Method, the funding is covered by the Member State. Here are some examples of national initiatives inspired by URBACT:

• Poland and its City Partnership Initiative facilitates thematic exchanges amongst Polish cities and encourages the production of local plans and recommendations following national priorities. 
• Portugal’s National Circular Cities Initiative has been designed to support towns and cities in their transition to a circular economy. National-level funding has been used to support thematic networks that have brought local people together. 

From June 2021 to December 2022, URBACT has piloted five National Practice Transfer Initiatives in Italy, Ireland, Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Slovakia. A National Practice Transfer Initiative aims to transfer a good city practice to other towns and cities in the same country. These initiatives are led by National URBACT Points. The URBACT Monitoring Committee will take decisions over the course of the URBACT IV programme about if and when other national practice transfer initiatives will take place.

Over the years, different local or regional authorities, metropolitan areas, agencies and districts have been involved in URBACT networks from all the EU countries that are covered by URBACT.    

City practitioners from URBACT Networks have valuable first-hand experiences to share, they can give you glimpse of what an URBACT journey can look like – from the call submission process to harvesting the results at local level. In addition, all URBACT cities develop their own URBACT Local Group, which promotes the Network’s mission at the city level and co-designs an Integrated Action Plan. 

Discover which cities in your country have previously received funding from URBACT III here. The list of beneficiaries under the URBACT IV programme will be available as soon as the calls of Networks are approved (from 2023 onwards).

To contact someone from ongoing Networks go to their webpage or contact the corresponding National URBACT Point (see more information above).