JOINING FORCES

Edited on 10/07/2025

21/04/2008 26/05/2010

Closed
  • Participative governance
  • Mobility
  • Urban renewal

JOINING FORCES aims at exploring how strategy making and governance arrangements at city-region scale can help to effectively address the main challenges faced by urban Europe: competitiveness, cohesion, and sustainability.

Summary

Introduction

JOINING FORCES is an Urbact Working Group that brings together 8 partners: Brno, Brussels-Capital Region, Burgas, Eindhoven, Florence, Krakow, Lille Metropole, and Seville.

 

All over Europe, metropolitan areas / city-regions are increasingly recognised, even by local authorities, as the "real city" level, the right one for developing more effective governance and strategy developments. Achieving successful cooperation between cities and their surrounding areas is obviously crucial to improve local cohesion, but even more to increase territorial competitiveness and sustainability.

 

The project aims at describing and analysing partners' situations in order to propose conclusions and suitable recommendations to the local / regional / national / European authorities on governance at city-region level. This theme will be considered through different aspects: 

  • Strategy and spatial planning
  • Mobility management and transport
  • Main environmental issues: water supply, waste disposal, etc.
  • Knowledge economy (creativity, research and education)
  • Governance (public / public & public / private arrangements
  • Social inclusion, participation, empowerment
    Attractiveness & Competitiveness (including promotion / marketing)

 

Partners

Lead Partner : Lille - France
  • Seville - Spain
  • Florence - Italy
  • Burgas - Bulgaria
  • Krakow - Poland
  • Brno - Czech Republic
  • Eindhoven - Netherlands
  • Brussels - Belgium

Timeline

Project launch

Project completed

Articles

  • Articles
    Plenary

    Hur kan svenska städer öka sin kapacitet att accelerera klimatomställningen med hjälp av extern finansiering? Rapport från en dag om klimatomställning, finansiering och hur vi tillsammans kan göra mer

    European Urban Initiative och Viable Cities samlade den 4 december över hundra personer från svenska och europeiska städer, regionala aktörer, nationella myndigheter och EU aktörer och program, för en
  • The Regeneration of Historic Centres: From Small Scale to Impactful Change

    By Pablo Muñoz Unceta | URBACT Ad-hoc Expert, Paisaje Transversal

    December 2025

  • Articles
    Vila Nova de Cerveira (PT)

    Beyond access: nine URBACT Good Practices for inclusive cities

    Find out how cities can create local realities where people feel seen, supported, and able to participate in collective problem-solving.