The increase in the arrival of refugees in 2015-16 and the rise in hostile attitudes towards them required more innovative and effective reception strategies. The aim was to make better use of the time that asylum seekers spent in reception shelters and that these centres would also provide opportunities for neighbors and local community, allowing to counteract negative narratives.
The project housed asylum seekers and refugees in the same complex as local young people. It used co-learning, inviting neighbours to take courses together and engage in social activities in a shared social space. The project aimed to engage with concerns from receiving communities and activate asylum seekers ‘from day one’ by providing opportunities for participants to develop their skills, to enhance wellbeing and improve inclusion and community cohesion in the neighbourhood.
Utrecht's new Integration Plan has been inspired by Plan Einstein and any new asylum shelter to be opened in Utrecht will have to follow the project concept.
Transforming an Emergency Shelter into a vibrant and innovative setting of a shared living, learning and working space that connects from day one refugees, neighbours and the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.
 

The ultimate place where asylum seekers will settle is uncertain and integration activities only start when asylum is granted. Emergency shelters are often placed in deprived neighbourhoods, where residents themselves face social and economic problems, facilitating hostile attitudes towards refugees. The challenge is to promote effective inclusion starting immediately upon refugee’s arrival, regardless of the country they end up living in, and promoting social acceptance of refugees in local communities.
Main solutions implemented: offering a combined community housing and shelter concept, with a wide range of social and cultural activities connecting local citizens and asylum seekers, focusing on common goals and the needs of the neighbourhood; providing International Entrepreneurship Training, English courses and peer to peer coaching by successful social entrepreneurs and corporations; offering an Incubator space for new business startups; reframing refugees’ broken narratives to more positive and hopeful narratives, whatever the outcome of their application.

The project integrates social, legal, academic, psychological, economic and political dimensions. That’s why it has combined the expertise of the City and the Dutch Refugee Council on the reception of asylum seekers, together with NGOs and social enterprises and research and educational institutions to provide evidence-based to such an innovative project.

The most effective participation processes have been those that have encouraged cooperation between the different target groups (asylum seekers, youngsters and local neighbours) based on equality, common objectives and interests and the recognition and contribution of the different skills and talents, that has helped to foster a common and shared sense of belonging.

The project management adopted a horizontal network arrangement based on a principle of cooperation and equality. This approach together with some delays, unexpected changes and the complex collaboration with the central government have posed some challenges that have been tackled from the capacity for adaptation and flexibility of the team and the creation of new roles and spaces for coordination between all the partners, that continue working together in the new phase of the project.

The external evaluators identified some relevant results: the Project had positive impact in generating good relations in the neighbourhood; participants were able to use Plan Einstein as a helpful means of starting to make the transition to the labour market by increasing their skills and networking; residents in both the Shelter and neighbourhood experienced greater levels of mental well-being by improving psychological health and encouraging more social connection and productive time-use.

The challenge of reception and inclusion of asylum seekers is shared by many European countries. The rise of populist discourses and xenophobic narratives threatens fundamental values and reinforces social polarisation. Cities are key actors in providing innovative responses in favour of inclusion, human rights and coexistence.  
The project has shown that promoting inclusion from day one by connecting asylum seekers with neighbours, sharing spaces, activities, training and projects to address the needs of the neighbourhood can have positive impacts for all.
The project is relevant to asylum seekers who spend months in reception centres, being able to use this time to develop new skills, participate in activities and build social networks. But it is also relevant for local neighbours who can take advantage of new services and training, and for the city as a whole which can better take the opportunities posed by diversity and avoid the costs linked to segregation, exclusion or racism. 
The project's approach is very transferable, because despite the differences in context between cities and countries, what it does is adapt the principles of integration or interculturality to the first phase of reception, by building a diverse network of local actors who collaborate for a common goal. 

VILAWATT is boosting the energy transition process in the Catalan city of Viladecans by setting up a public-private-citizen partnership (PPCP, taking the legal form of a Consortium) where citizens of Viladecans and its main social actors play a key role. Viladecans priority was to increase citizen commitment and sense of belonging to promote a sustainable energy transition process. 

Main achievements so far are:

Governance- Citizens have a say at the Consortium through the associations linked to it. These associations have been created thanks to Vilawatt’s participatory strategy, as they did not exist before.

Energy supply– Vilawatt pools the demand for energy and provides energy to all association members (100% Certified Renewable Energy) 
Faster energy retrofitting of private buildings - Three residential buildings (in an underprivileged district) have received 1,4 M€ investment in a process that has been boosted by the city hall. The neighbours were part of the decision making process of the retrofitting works.
Consulting services and learning communities - targeted at 10 different social actors: schools, retail sector, companies, unemployed…
Efficiency incentives – Vilawatt local currency - The creation of a local electronic currency linked to energy savings also revitalises our retail sector (especially innovative in pandemic times). 

• Boosting the shift towards a low-carbon economy: VILAWATT project has created a new organizational structure with a new set of tools to empower citizens and communities on energy saving and deep energy renovation issues.
• Promoting citizen engagement to boost the change on the energy model: The bottom-up design process amongst all beneficiaries and involved actors (especially kids) has been essential to its success.
• Enhancing employment possibilities: VILAWATT project has included a special focus on improving capacities of the local professionals, workers and unemployed on deep energy renovation, energy savings assessment and RES integration with thematic workshops and trainings 
• Revitalising the local sector: With the new digital currency linked to energy transition and energy savings we are revitalising the local sector and contributing to circular economy.

• 9 partners (public and private) coordinated by the municipality of Viladecans have been involved in the project, each of them with a specific field of expertise (energy contracts, local currency, neighbours mediation, rehabilitation works...). 
• One key achievement has been the development of a Participatory Strategic Plan that analyses the specific role played by 10 different social actors, mainly: neighbours (benefitting from all the company´s services); schools (11 schools are implementing energy-saving programs); construction companies (they exchange ideas and good practices), unemployed (they receive trainings in the energy field) and local trades (they accept the currency).

Vilawatt has succeeded on building a complex governance structure and implementing its services in a short implementation period. Some challenges were related to the effective engagement of neighbours in energy transition processes (solution: innovative communication, gamification), the implementation of the local currency, and the fiscal barriers that affected the beneficiaries of the subsidy for renovations (solution: being creative and finding fast alternatives to local barriers). Vilawatt has created so far:

• 1 one-stop administration offering energy supply, consultancy, local currency, retrofitting works;
• 1 Consortium governing the structure;
• 3 retrofitted buildings;
• 33 participative actions;
• 14 communication campaigns.

This project is lined up with the EU Energy Strategy and the policies related for a secure, competitive and sustainable energy. Viladecans Municipality seeks to speed-up its ambitious energy transition project in order to achieve the 2030 Energy Strategy targets (40% less greenhouse gas emissions, 27% share of RES consumption, 27% energy savings).
At regional and local levels, Vilawatt is also aligned with the Energy Savings Plan 2011-2020, from Spanish Government and also the Catalan regulations on Energy building renovations.  
Vilawatt’s approach can be interesting for medium cities willing to boost their energy transition strategy. Although Vilawatt structure (meaning its governance structure plus all its services) is complex to implement in a short period of time, some of its aspects can be replicated individually. 
All phases of the project have been designed in a way that they can be replicated in other cities. However, given that buildings have different energy behavior depending on the geographical area, the retrofitting models & actions need to be specifically-tailored. Also local regulations may vary depending on the local/regional/national context and need to be carefully checked in advance. 

The City of Milan decided to set up an urban coalition with a series of partners (Universities, companies, associations) in order to apply for the first call of UIA Initiative, with the desire to scale up this positioning in the peri-urban agricultural industry, setting up a stable growth and creating new jobs and skills.
OpenAgri is mainly an urban policy experimentation that follows the place-based approach, focusing on new skills for new jobs in peri-urban agriculture. The project area can be defined as an “urban fringe”, representing the transition zone between the consolidated part of the City and the agricultural lands. The challenge was to locate an innovative urban service aimed at creating new jobs, skills, start- ups and innovation in agri-food sector while increasing the level of resilience and sustainability of the City.
OpenAgri (1) improved entrepreneurship by fostering the creation of new innovative firms and social enterprises focusing on sustainability in periurban agriculture and the agri-food sector; (2) Contributed to the overall regeneration of a fringe area promoting a strong focus on social inclusion; and (3) Exploited the potential of several food policy experiments within a single integrated.

OpenAgri is a step forward in the capacity to deliver an innovative integrated strategy. It represents experimental initiatives in the field of labour and innovation policy. The following solutions can be offered:

• Solution 1: Educational and training environment: competencies validation and certification, educational services delivery, business planning, linkages with educational institutions;
• Solution 2: Experimentation Lab: explores innovative techniques in urban agriculture and engage a series of partners on making the best use of public owned 33 hectares plot of land surrounding the south Milan Parco Sud boundaries.
• Solution 3: Entrepreneurship: The process to find innovative projects, agriculture entrepreneurs, companies and/or startups and other organized parties.
• Solution 4: Resilient territorial development: The peri-urban transformation of Milano changed due to OpenAgri capacity to create strong, mutually supportive linkages between rural and urban areas and to engage stakeholders, like MMA spa, with the capacity to promote further investment.

OpenAgri partnership is a good example of a participative approach, since it brings local stakeholders from education and training, agricultural, cultural, social and policymakers. It is a very complex and integrated project because it keeps together many different dimensions and makes them work in a specific place, but also in a city systematically. It was an opportunity to relate areas of competence of the administration that are very different from one another and that are used to look at problems from their single point of view. This project necessarily had to confront with the people responsible for environment, urban planning, agriculture, labour. Such an integrated project forced to create new relationships and we learned something from this collaboration.

The agro-ecological and landscape design developed by the 30-hectare Masterplan created a new locality for the city. This means designing for shared access to systems and services, planning functional infrastructures, and activating networks between people, places and products.
The focus was on business development and innovation. The best example is the incubation and startups support that developed innovative projects in agriculture and circular economy, with particular focus on the water resource and its use within the food supply chains, along a cycle that goes from production, to transformation, to consumption, to waste and reuse of waste.
Acting smart in the context of OpenAgri was not only about technology, but more about the smart use of local resources and amenities and finding the right balance of business diversity, to create an economy that is specialised but still resilient.

OpenAgri is an experimental project that challenge existing practices and regulations in cities, regions, policy fields and local contexts. The project proved to be an excellent opportunity to experiment a hypothesis of work that is inherent to UIA program. This is very interesting because it means to start not from a regeneration of the container, but from the activation of new economic dynamics.
It was an opportunity to relate areas of competence of the administration that are very different from one another and that are used to look at problems from their single point of view. This project necessarily had to confront with the people responsible for environment, urban planning, agriculture, labour.
OpenAgri is now a hub for the agri-food sector but the city wants it to be a more complex hub that will work not only on the themes of peri-urban agriculture, but also on circular economy, trying to put them in relation. They have understood that there are interesting connections between peri-urban agriculture and for example the water cycle, thanks to the nearby water purifier. There is clear evidence that the core principles and components will now apply at a larger scale within Milan but also in other European cities.

The B-MINCOME, combining a minimum guaranteed income with active social policies in deprived urban areas of Barcelona, is a pilot project that aims to fight poverty and social exclusion.  The project covers  an area north east called Eix Besos one of the most vulnerable of the city. The districts targeted in this project are: Ciutat Meridiana, Vallbona, Torre Baró, Roquetes and Trinitat Nova in the Nou Barris district, Trinitat Vella, Baró de Viver and Bon Pastor in the Sant Andreu district, and Verneda i La Pau, and Besòs i el Maresme in the Sant Martí district. After a selection of 5000 potential candidate identified among inhabitants in the EIx Besos, a random selection of 1000 households joined the pilot of BMINCOME.  Between 2017-2019 BMINCOME benefitted 952 families in the ten neighbourhoods. 

The BMINCOME, combines a minimum guaranteed income ( Called Municipal Inclusion Support -SMI) with active social policies for mutual and solidarity-based economies, adopting  local digital currency ( REC) for boosting local trade.   The aim was to  reach up to 1,000 vulnerable households, with a steady income for the duration of the pilot, whose amount is based on several criteria and the composition of the household. 

Four active policies enables citizens to exit the condition of poverty through the development of social entrepreneurial skills into different areas of solidarity economy:

1.  Training programme and employment plans, implemented with an active involvement of NGO and associations located in the area.
2.  Social economy programme for the creation of cooperative, social, solidarity economy and community- interest projects
3.  Housing renovation programme, support to rent out rooms to improve income. Not implemented as expected. 
4.  Community participation programmes for common-interest projects.
    

The partners are Ajuntament de Barcelona ( leading the pilot), The Young Foundation - Think Thank, IVALUA. Catalan Institute of Public Policy Evaluation - Research Centr, Autonomous University of Barcelona. IGOP. Institute of Governance and Public Policies - Universit; UPC. Polytechnic University of Catalonia – University; NOVA. Centre for Social Innovation - NGO.
Under the leadership  of the Department of innovation, BMINCOME  led to innovation in the organisation of municipal social services and municipal policies deliveries counting on NGOs active in the target area. 
Locally, especially the policy 4, has been dedicated to animate beneficiaries in community building, peer learning. Greater collective involvement of females has been observed in community life. The approach o this policy has forged intercultural ties and local relations between individuals, who express quite a positive view of their neighbourhoods.
 

A total of 3,700 people benefitted from  B-MINCOME equal to 952 households in the ten neighborhoods of the Besòs axis. About 84% of SMI recipients are women, receiving about 480 euros on average per month during two years. Results show that  having a guaranteed minimum income  has reduced material deprivation, increased the level of well-being and encouraged participation in community activities. Hence, it has reduced financial uncertainty for the duration of the project,  and generated overall satisfaction. However, some beneficiaries, suffering of material and financial precariousness, persist in facing struggles. 
The implementation of the digital currency ( REC) experimented in BMINCOME proved to be efficient in boosting local economy As legacy with BMINCOME a campaign launched in November 2020  Le Toca el Barrio  gives continuity to the creation of the citizen currency REC in the same geographical area. 

The problems tackled by BMINCOME are of complex and multifaceted nature and the pilot did not and could not solve all of them. 
However, considering the evaluation of the outcome, the pilot showed benefits in improving the conditions of material deprivation, food insecurity and financial precariousness of beneficiaries. This example of municipal-led schemes for guaranteed minimum income could be adopted by other cities given that monetary support cannot solely be covered by local administration. Impacts are not generously rewarding in terms of employment, this data can be reconsidered because little time elapsed from the completion to the pilot. What is instead interesting for other cities , is that the Pilot provided a methodology for encouraging  employability and job creation through training and coaching  in the frame of solidarity and mutual support at community level, which can be replicated in other contexts.  Replicable is also the adoption of the Digital neighbourhood currency (REC) which is further supported in time of pandemic as legacy to BMINCOME to support local economies. The project is also a positive example for reaching out people facing severe deprivation  often invisible or inaccessible via traditional service provision, or cultural initiatives led by the municipality. The SMI benefitted mostly women out penalised by the job market, most of them with a migrant background and lacking basic educational and language skills.

CO-CITY addresses the challenge of poverty in distressed neighbourhoods through the regeneration of under-utilised public spaces and assets, turned into places able to trigger a process of sustainable development. The regeneration projects are co-designed by the City and residents. Co-City counteracts social-spatial polarisation through spaces/assets’ regeneration, creating public-community partnerships, mutual trust, cooperation at the neighbourhood level.

CO-CITY implements “pacts of collaboration” according to the Regulation for the Governance of urban commons, co-designed with city inhabitants’ organisations. They stimulate organisation and define co-governance schemes for the regeneration of spaces hosting activities varying from community gardens; creative placemaking; capacity building processes; community hubs. These pacts are one of the most important co-governance tools increasingly adopted by Italian cities since 2014 to promote and enable the urban commons.

CUMIANA15 pact foresees the transformation of a former car-manufacturing factory requiring significant physical renovation into a hybrid indoor-outdoor space functioning as a cultural-creative activities community hub. The implementation of a new administrative model rooted in the “pacts of collaboration” and the “Regulation for the Governance of Urban Commons” aiming at empowering inhabitants in the care of urban spaces fostering reciprocal commitment to urban justice.

CO-CITY addresses urban poverty turning dismissed infrastructures and public land into hubs of neighbourhoods inhabitants’ collective action. It turns them into “urban commons”, contributing to the establishment of civic and entrepreneurial activities leveraging inhabitants’ participation stimulated by the City and facilitated by the Neighbourhood Houses acting as local co-governance units.

Main solutions implemented include: co-design and co-governance innovative process. The city created an integrated administrative structure to ensure an integrated approach; building and management of the pact of collaboration to accelerate inhabitants’ organisations empowerment in turning public spaces into engines of neighbourhood revitalisation; diversified tools, no one size fits all solution. Resources allocated through a call for proposal foreseeing three measures:

a) peripheries and urban cultures;

b) under-utilised infrastructure, with a focus on schools;

c) civic care of public spaces. 
 

The project partnership is composed by: the network of Neighbourhood Houses, local community hubs that took care of community building activities; the University of Turin, contributing to the project’s research and theoretical framework; the National Association of Italian Municipalities, in charge of communication and networking.

50 pacts of collaboration between the City Administration and citizens’ organisations have been signed. The pacts regulate caring for public spaces and many socio-cultural activities. The participative process is focused on two moments:

1. Co-design. All the feasibility issues are fine tuned and finalised.
2. Co-management. The City and the involved organisations share decision-making and responsibilities. 
    

The most important project challenge has been the use of a totally new juridical tool (the pact of collaboration) that resulted in a collective learning effort by all the stakeholders involved. This relied on a solid local background and tradition of community engagement which is mainly represented by the local network of Neighbourhood Houses. 
The project’s implementation has contributed to the development of mutual trust and social inclusion.

Both public officers (24 city departments, 90 officers) and active citizens (more than 214 organisations) involved in the project implementation consider positively the enabling role of CO-CITY as a way to innovate policies and practices, unlocking the potential of urban development.
Among the different pacts, the one of CUMIANA15 can be mentioned - a hybrid space (half renewed industrial building, half covered square), now co-managed to become a new socio-cultural hub. 

Cities and citizens play a pivotal role in the EU policy framework tackling climate change and mission-oriented innovation. The European Green Deal and the linked H2020 EGD call both stress the importance of public-community cooperation. The Horizon Europe cities mission foresees a climate neutral city contract. The JRC City Science Initiative considers public-community partnerships a cross-cutting policy tool.

CO-CITY pacts enable inhabitants’ organisations to work closely together and with City officials, reinforcing trust in institutions, social cohesion, long-term commitment of the entire administrative machine. They were critical in keeping urban spaces safe and alive during the pandemic. Social bonds created by the pacts helped preserve the social interaction. 
CO-CITY pacts are able to bring together city communities, governments, knowledge institutions, social and private operators. The so-called quintuple helix urban co-governance approach aims at stimulating neighbourhood cooperation. CO-CITY is a good guidance for policymakers and social actors wishing to build public-community cooperation.
Each civic deal sanctioned in the CO-CITY pacts could be implemented in every neighbourhood. Several EU cities are already building on similar institutional design principles and co-design methodologies their own urban co-governance policy. Regenerated spaces like CUMIANA15 show how these forms of self-organisation could be self-sustainable.