Paris, 24 January 2019 – A new publication by the European programme URBACT shares positive stories from 40 cities that took a more integrated approach to local policy-making while learning from EU peers in their ‘Action Planning Network’.
Reviving a town centre, welcoming migrants, re-using abandoned buildings, boosting entrepreneurship, engaging citizens… ‘Cities in Action - Stories of Change’ shows cities finding new ways to tackle diverse urban challenges, bringing long-term improvements.
“It is about cities that have dared to experiment, that have succeeded in achieving results in the fields of social inclusion, economic development, urban planning, or greener ways of living,” writes Corina Creţu, EU Commissioner for Regional and Urban Policy, in the introduction. “City-to-city cooperation is the best way to facilitate exchange, adaptation, implementation and up-scaling of good practices all over the world.”
“These stories will be really inspiring for any urban practitioner looking for simple ways to bring people together and make their cities safer, cleaner and more prosperous. URBACT has sparked community-led improvements like these in more than a thousand cities since 2002.” says URBACT’s Adele Bucella
The 40 cities range from Aarhus (DK) and its plan for collaborative citizenship, to Zagreb (HR) and its 11 new smart city initiatives. With URBACT’s support, each city formed a local group including officials, local stakeholders and urban experts, to co-create an Integrated Action Plan – many of whom contributed lively accounts to the publication. Meanwhile, cities also worked with up to 10 other partner cities in their URBACT network, including site visits and peer reviews.
Today, more than 66% of these URBACT cities have had their Integrated Action Plan approved, nearly 50% secured funding for it, and more than 80% of them have already started implementing it.
Locally-driven solutions
The new publication includes:
A message from Corina Creţu, EU Commissioner for Regional and Urban Policy;
A clear summary of the URBACT method and its principles of horizontal and vertical policy integration;
Stories of locallydriven improvements in 40 EU cities, with solutions in nine key areas: urban mobility, jobs and skills in the local economy, reuse of abandoned spaces, climate adaptation, innovative public procurement, digital transition, inclusion of migrants and refugees, urban poverty, sustainable use of land;
Key information on the 20 Action Planning networks, including full partner lists.
Lasting impact
“If we hadn’t joined MAPS I think we’d still be searching for one big aim, one big new reuse of the whole territory. And instead, the area must be split up, and different uses must appear. I think we’re now sure in the municipality that we’ve had the wrong approach over the past more than 20 years.”
Ágnes Győrffy, Project Manager for the Mayor’s Office of Szombathely (HU)
“As a result of URBACT, a network of associations and civic committees has been formed and consolidated in Casoria. Today even without a strong coordination of the municipal administration, they are carrying forward the ideas and methodologies shared during the sub>urban experience. This wasn’t just about a park; it helped us rebuild our local identity.”
Enrico Formato, University of Naples external expert for Casoria (IT).
“Visiting delegates had very powerful thoughts, and gave us the confidence to be strong in our desire to shape wider policy to tackle our city’s disadvantaged and neglected communities. We hope to have the support of this network to challenge politicians and decision-makers in Birmingham to ensure that a wider systems-thinking approach is continued, rather than reverting back to silo working.”
Ravinder Bains, Birmingham City Council (UK)
Among the headlines of summer 2017: disastrous floods in the South of England, Istanbul and Berlin, extreme water scarcity in Rome, wild fires damaging homes on the Croatian coast, the Côte d'Azur and elsewhere… The magnitude and frequency of these and other events indicate that climate change is already a reality, and the impacts will be even bigger in the future. Yes, we need to reduce greenhouse gases to limit climate change, but equally urgent: we need to adapt to the remaining impacts. All cities, depending on their geographical position, are likely to experience prolonged and more intensive heatwaves or droughts, more frequent wild fires, coastal flooding, or an increase in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall with the associated threat of urban flooding, river flooding or landslides. How can cities cope with these huge predicted impacts of climate change in the future, even when they are faced with tight budgets? Can nature be a solution?
Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, has a long tradition of coping with excessive rainwater, going back long before climate change adaptation came on the agenda. The solutions have become even more important now with the projected increase in the number and intensity of extreme rainfall events. Just across the Øresund, Copenhagen was heavily flooded by an immense cloudburst in 2011. Damage costs mounted up to 800 million EUR. Such an extreme event could also hit Malmö. On a smaller scale, the neighbourhood of Augustenborg in Malmö already experienced frequent flooding from an overflowing drainage system in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead of extending the sewage system, the city experimented with green and blue infrastructure: vegetation and water. This solution comprises several kilometres of water channels and retention ponds, green roofs on new and retrofitted buildings, and green areas redesigned to better store and drain rain water or delay its discharge. Only excess water is led into the sewage system. As a result, problems with flooding have ceased. At the same time, the area has become much more attractive to its residents.
The city has used this approach again in Western Harbour, a new residential area built on a former brownfield. It copes with rainwater mostly with the support of the many green roofs, green areas, water channels and retention basins. Water has become a playful feature in the urban design of the area, which was co-created with the future residents right from the planning phase. The design also helps mitigate climate change thanks to low-energy housing and the integrated generation of renewable energy. All of this has made the area extremely popular not just to its residents, but also to lots of other citizens and tourists who enjoy the nice seaside area. This long-term valuable experience and knowledge is an asset that Malmö shares with other cities as a member of the URBACT network Resilient Europe.
Indeed, nature-based solutions can be a key tool for climate change adaptation. They comprise green infrastructure of all kinds but also solutions that allow natural processes, like floods, to happen without harm, e.g. by building floating or elevated houses. While Malmö is already enjoying the many benefits of green infrastructures in boosting quality of life, Hamburg and Copenhagen have recently calculated that they urgently need nature-based solutions to cope with climate change. They simply cannot extend the technical infrastructure – their sewage system – to the extent that it can cope with the amount of water expected under heavy cloudbursts. Costs for such a solution would be astronomically high, if feasible at all. Instead, green areas, green roofs, storage areas or streets as temporary waterways will take their share of water, storing, draining or delaying the discharge, thus relieving the sewage system. Calculations show that today’s solutions as we know them won’t do the job in Europe’s climate of the future, but a combination with nature-based solutions can work.
Rotterdam opts for multi-functionality in its dense urban setting
Rotterdam also has to cope increasingly with water – from a rising sea level, more torrential rain, and river flooding. There are not many places the water can go, as much of the area is low-lying and water needs to be pumped away. That makes the city very vulnerable and dependent on a functioning technical infrastructure. The city needs storing capacity to delay the discharge of water during heavy rainfall, but space is scarce in the Netherlands, where almost every square meter is used either for houses or for agri- and horticulture. In addition, as a dense city, Rotterdam aims to be both energy and transport efficient, and liveable and attractive. In its search for innovative solutions, Rotterdam came up with a range of ideas that are being explored further in the context of the Resilient Europe network. Some are swimming structures like the solar-powered floating pavilion in the Rijnhaven that copes with different water levels, others are roof-top farms or the famous water squares. Their special design offers multiple uses and benefits: Normally, these squares are dry and include playgrounds, sports facilities, nice places to meet or take a break, but under heavy rainfall they fill up with water and protect the surrounding from flooding, and are attractive in a different way.
Nevertheless, such innovative ways to deal with climate challenges are not always easy to establish. While planners were enthusiastic, citizens were concerned: For example, would the area still be safe for their children? The planners had to find ways to overcome these barriers, build trust and convince. Meanwhile, the first water squares have been established, and they are highly appreciated.
Combinations of green, grey and soft measures to make Vejle climate-resilient
Water forms part of the identity of Vejle in Denmark too. It comes from all sides: the rising level of the Baltic Sea, combined with storm surges, elevates the risk of coastal flooding. And the rising number and intensity of heavy rainfall events brings more water from the sky and the streams. Important assets of the city, like the harbour, the city centre and some infrastructure are vulnerable, and the sewage system is not prepared for extremely high water loads. Current measures alone, like the soft measure of today’s well-functioning emergency responses, won’t suffice in the future.
The city already uses green infrastructure in several areas. However, as great and effective as it is, green infrastructure alone cannot deal completely with future impacts in Vejle, in particular in the event of storm surges. Hence, the city is actively searching for new and innovative solutions combining green, grey and soft measures. Its district project ‘Fjordbyen’ will serve as a laboratory for climate change adaptation and flood control and explore how water can also be an asset for the quality of the area, not just a risk. Innovative solutions where water can be embraced can improve knowledge, economic growth and welfare for local people.
A common factor for these, and similar examples of climate-resilient solutions in cities across the EU, is that they see climate change adaptation as part of a bigger concept. As well as collaborating in the Resilient Europe URBACT network, Rotterdam, Vejle, Glasgow, Bristol and Thessaloniki are also part of the global 100 Resilient Cities initiative. The concept comprises social cohesion, environment, health and wellbeing, economic prosperity, heritage and participation, and will enhance quality of life.
Thessaloniki builds resilience on broad participation and collaboration
In Thessaloniki, more than 40 organisations and 2,000 citizens from across the city have participated in the resilience strategy development. This ongoing co-creation process unleashes the potential for bottom up innovative solutions by residents and communities. Like Rotterdam, urban density is an issue for Thessaloniki with just 2.6m2 of green space per resident compared to the European average of 8-10m2. Nevertheless, the city sees green infrastructure as an important part of the solution. Hence, the city aims to increase the quality, effectiveness and number of benefits by redesigning the limited open space. This creates spaces for social interaction at the same time. It plans solutions such as permeable surfaces, rain gardens, green walls, but also supports urban agriculture in inner courtyards and pocket community gardens that, on top, come at low costs which is very important in times of austerity. These solutions not only involve residents in the design of their area, but encourage them to learn about agriculture and nutrition and may also help to integrate migrants and refugees with diverse agricultural traditions.
For its valuable pieces of green infrastructure, the city developed the Adopt your Green Spot programme. It facilitates the active engagement of citizens in the maintenance of urban green by taking co-ownership of public green space while keeping public expenditures low. At the same time, this activity educates people, contributes to the local economy, and creates or fosters local communities and social cohesion. Participation, education, community, connectedness, integration and more; these are the important soft factors for building up long-term and effective resilience that technical measures alone cannot do. They are relevant for resilience towards any type of shock and change.
Transforming cities with nature and innovation into thriving places – Bilbao inspires
Bilbao, which recently became an URBACT Good Practice city, takes the holistic approach to adaptation a step further. Some decades ago, the city learned painfully that the business-as-usual way wouldn’t lead them out of their deep economic crisis. The city started the process towards a broadly integrated urban development strategy to cope with the complexity of its urban challenges. That continuous process is still ongoing. Over the last 30 years, Bilbao has undertaken a massive transformation. Interventions like the iconic Guggenheim museum, the clean-up of the river, new infrastructures, internationalisation, a focus on excellent design, nice parks and other urban greens, as well as the restoration of the historic centre, reinvented the city that is thriving very well now. In this tradition, the city has recently started adaptation activities that shall contribute to creating a flourishing, climate-resilient city that offers a high quality of life. One example is the regeneration of the Zorrotzaure district, a currently degraded, flood-prone industrial peninsula. A combination of grey and green measures of building and urban design will make it flood-proof and highly attractive as well, thus adding to Bilbao’s overall appearance of a modern, liveable and strong city.
The cities here present feasible approaches that turned the need for making their city climate-resilient into an opportunity to boost quality of life and transform them into enjoyable and thriving places. The process to get there includes many of the ingredients already used in other urban regeneration and development processes, among them broad participation, good governance, and collaboration across sectors and stakeholders. The examples show that having a great, broadly accepted vision of the future, dedication and commitment to the task, as well as plenty of stamina, are important for a successful transformation process. Nature-based solutions have proved to be a key tool: attractive and multi-functional at reasonable costs, they are a valuable asset that every city can use.
Three of the cities selected in the first call of Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) are working, or have worked, within URBACT on topics similar to their UIA bids: Turin, Bologna and Rotterdam.
We investigated what made these cities successful at being involved in the two European programmes, and asked whether there is – for these cities – something like a trajectory between URBACT and UIA.
This article is the third and last of our series of articles on this topic.
It is based on an interview with Manuela Marsano, from the Economic development and city promotion Department, and Inti Bertocchi, from the social inclusion unit at the City of Bologna.
Learning with other European Cities to help the most fragile population
In its involvement with URBACT, Bologna has demonstrated a strong interest in helping its most fragile communities to get housing and jobs, and to feel fully part of the city.
Bologna has for instance been working hard, in partnership with its Roma communities, to improve their situation in the city. The Municipality of Bologna was a partner of the URBACT network Roma Net, which aimed at overcoming negative attitudes towards Roma, developing the City Local Action Plan as framework for policies and activities targeting the Roma community and improving consultation and engagement with them. Later, Bologna also took part in Roma Net II, which focused on improving access to education, health, housing and services and stimulating employment opportunities for working age Roma.
In addition, the Metropolitan City of Bologna is involved in Job Town 2 showing commitment to helping another fragile group, that of unemployed youth.
A continuous search for social innovation
Bologna is also seriously dedicated to social innovation. With the URBACT network Creative Spin it set tools and methods to trigger creativity and innovation in businesses and other kinds of public and private organisations, by encouraging artists, creative professionals (in advertising, design, architecture), cultural institutions and industries to engage with other sectors to share their competencies and skills.
This commitment to work with young creatives and to involve and retain them in the city continues today with the URBACT network Gen_Y City.
Bologna’s continuous search for innovative governance methods is also clear in the Procure Network, which explores how to bring about economic, social and environmental benefits through a better use of public spending.
Salus Space: An ambitious project to create a new type of space for housing, employment and culture, connecting local communities and newcomers
All the principles and methods explored by Bologna within URBACT are to be found its Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) project ‘S.A.L.U.S. ‘W’ SPACE – sustainable, accessible, livable, usable social space for intercultural wellbeing, welfare and welcoming’.
The project is to rehabilitate a big abandoned building - Salus Space - check also the website for pictures, which is just outside the city, but pretty close (500 meters from the first building of the city and 10 minutes walk from the closest bus stop). Salus Space will provide temporary housing for up to two years (and an average of 18 months) for about 40 refugees and other people who have a fragile housing situation. The building will include a restaurant and several cultural activities. By involving residents in the management of the building and its activities, the space will also act as a bridge with the city, with learning space to access new opportunities for culture and jobs.
Salus Space is a risky, challenging and difficult project, but one with a strong appeal, that of creating a new centre in the city, where people can come to live, learn, eat and have fun together.
Co-design: A strong principle developed in URBACT
Salus Space is based on two levels of participation: one horizontal, involving citizens and local stakeholders in “co-creation”; and one vertical, with main institutions (Region, Metropolitan City, Prefecture, Municipality and District authorities) providing provide feedback and ensuring links to urban policies.
In this way, the project has been co-designed from the beginning, using approaches Bologna picked up from URBACT. There are 17 partners at local level who are really working together and, from the beginning, the City has involved citizens as well as several other stakeholders. It has also developed a cross-departmental method of working within the municipality.
Right from the application stage the project was co-designed, and this is set to continue throughout the life of the project. At the start, the Municipality made a public call for suggestions on the regeneration and strategy for the building. Currently, in the first phase of the project’s implementation, stakeholders are involved in co-creating a shared vision of the building. An ongoing evaluation of the project realised by citizens and refugees has already started and will last until the end of the project.
The University of Bologna, one of the project partners, is in charge of implementing the participatory process of co-creation. It gets feedback from the city and stakeholders and ensures their continuous involvement, for instance to design some parts of the project, which have not been pre-defined at the application stage. Currently, one of the topics being investigated is how exactly the space can be used by the city (education and social activity) to make sure the space is lived in by the citizens and not only by the residents of the building.
There are several ways for citizens to take part in the project. For example, a training scheme allows citizens to become online journalists for the blog and website of the space (saluspace.eu).
Manuela insists that her ways of thinking about participatory processes at all stages of the project comes from the experience developed within URBACT. “The municipality has learnt that there is nothing that can be done without the involvement of the target community” and that “we, as a municipality, can facilitate the process and not just drive it”.
Governance: a key learning from URBACT
Manuela also says that she learnt from URBACT how difficult it is to ensure the well functioning governance of a project, involving several – as many as possible – stakeholders.
In order to build good governance of the Salus Space project from the start, Manuela directly took the principles of the URBACT Local Stakeholders Group and applied them to create a new governance board, involving the right stakeholders.
She even applied those principles to the application process and to structuring the project. Notably Manuela mentions how the strong devolution of ‘work packages’ (i.e. the different aspects) of the project to partners results from her experience with URBACT. That is how she developed trust and learnt to work jointly with several partners.
Taking and giving back to other European cities
To build such innovative projects, Bologna takes inspiration from other European cities. In the case of Salus Space, one of the inspirations was the Madga Hotel in Vienna, in which hosts are welcomed by trained refugees. However, Bologna knows it has to adapt good ideas to its local situation. It is attempting – with Salus Space – a mix of activities it has never seen anywhere else, with modes of operations that are specific to this project. A real challenge!
Exchanging is at the core of Bologna’s approach, and on that point again Bologna applied principles learnt in URBACT to its UIA project.
To ensure the sustainability of the project, a think-tank has been created to bring in examples from abroad and to help in the final process of capitalising on learnings.
The project also plans to invest strongly in communicating locally and further afield, sharing what they have learnt, so that others can benefit from Bologna’s Salus Space experiences.
For Bologna, there are strong thematic and methodological connections between URBACT and UIA.
Manuela simply and beautifully explains how one of the main lessons she learnt from URBACT is now applied to thinking and creating innovation in the city, as in the case of the UIA Salus Space project: “Innovation is not about huge changes in one go, but in many small changes and steps that make a big difference”.
Smart specialisation and its related methodology known as Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) have been assessed as “the most comprehensive industrial policy experience being implemented in contemporary Europe”. In this context, what is the role to be played by cities? Right now, at the time of implementation, a number of major cities feel they have much to contribute in moving RIS3 visions and roadmaps forward. So, what are the pathways and frameworks to enhance better alignment between regions and cities with regard to existing RIS3 strategies? What is the urban dimension of smart specialisation? This article brings some insights to these questions.
Smart specialisation adds two key values to previous Regional Innovation Strategies in the EU, namely:
the value of prioritizing (of making smart choices) and
how such prioritization should be done and kept current through a collaborative process that involves as many stakeholders from the triple/quadruple helix as possible, in particular research centres, leading firms and entrepreneurs in a process that is now called “entrepreneurial discovery”.
Since RIS3 was fixed as an ex-ante conditionality for EU regions and member states to get ERDF funding for their Operational Programmes on innovation, smart specialization has entered the mainstream vocabulary in business-led economic development.
InFocus-Smart Specialisation at City Level is a pioneering URBACT network that brings a city perspective to this new policy concept, pursuing a double aim. Firstly, re-invigorating the urban agenda on economic development by means of smart specialization as an overarching approach. That is, testing how this concept can foster and refine the work cities and their stakeholders are doing (or can do) in four key areas: cluster development, entrepreneurship, workspace provision and investment attraction. Secondly, making a bridge with the existing RIS3 strategies at regional level, which is basically a matter of multi-level governance.
Why both cities and RIS3 leading authorities need to be involved
Tackling the question of effective city-to-region articulation with regard to smart specialisation presents a precious opportunity to raise the status of some innovative cities in the field of industrial and innovation policies, especially given the main role major cities play in today´s global competition. But are cities ready to take full advantage of smart specialisation and RIS3?
The fact is that for many cities it seems like RIS3 has little to do with them. This misunderstanding arises from the RIS3 elaboration process, when cities were mostly approached within a conventional public consultation logic, rather than in the spirit of real co-production. As a result, the idea of smart specialisation is still barely assimilated at local level, and there is much to do to raise awareness on the meaning and potential impact of smart specialisation.
Another powerful reason to draw the attention on the city-to-region articulation with regard to smart specialisation is that RIS3 implementation has just begun. It is a significant challenge, bigger than RIS3 design, where all efforts, at different scales, should be activated. In this respect local and metropolitan authorities could help to embed RIS3 strategies properly. As a territorial innovation policy at regional/national level, RIS3 should have a more consistent and explicit territorial strategy. The InFocus network is working to fill that gap, in close collaboration with the S3 Platform, which is the unit created by the European Commission to assist regions and member states on smart specialisation.
Furthermore, some innovative cities and metropolitan areas in Europe are currently promoting ambitious transforming agendas, e.g. Next Economy roadmap in Rotterdam inspired by Jeremy Rifkin´s ideas, and Bilbao Next Lab which is presented as an “action-research approach for the economic transformation of Bilbao”. Thus, RIS3 strategies (which are themselves presented as policy frameworks for economic transformation) and these visionary city roadmaps might become mutually reinforcing if well connected and aligned.
Building the bridge
So, what can you do to properly align your work agenda as a city to your regional smart specialisation strategy? How can you make the most of the powerful concept of smart specialization to refine your own urban agenda in economic development? We, in InFocus, have gathered a number of experiences as follows, inside and outside the network, mostly, still at an exploratory stage which can provide a path to tackle these questions.
Integrated urban development initiatives (art. 7 ERDF).
In the context of integrated and sustainable urban development strategies (article 7 of ERDF), the DG for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission is encouraging cities to bridge with their existing RIS3 strategies at regional/national level. For instance, the Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) now underway in the urban agglomeration of Ostrava (CZ) is organized in three strategic goals (the “3E” Employment, Entrepreneurship and Environment) and eleven specific objectives. One these objectives, as part of the strategic goal on Entrepreneurship is specifically dedicated to “implement activities to support smart specialization strategies for Moravian-Silesian Region”.
New metropolitan agendas as windows of opportunity.
Territorial reform in some member states, like France and Italy, has led to urban policies in major cities being re-scaled up to the metropolitan level. In urban agglomerations like Bordeaux, Grenoble and Turin (all of them InFocus partners) new policy-mixes for new ambitions are in progress, and the smart specialisation approach will certainly play a significant role. The former province of Turin, now turned into new metropolitan authority (Cittá Metropolitana di Torino, including 315 municipalities and a population of 2.3 million - 890,000 in the Municipality of Torino) is facing the challenge of both horizontal and vertical multi-level governance. At this juncture, the idea of smart specialization has great potential to work as a driver to promote more articulation and cohesion. That is, smart specialization as a tool to create more alignment and focus among all the initiatives within the metropolitan area on cluster development, entrepreneurship, attraction of investment, etc.
RIS3 authorities taking the lead to engage with funding.
Catalonia is organising sub-regional initiatives called Territorial Specialisation and Competitiveness Projects (PECTs) to articulate to regional RIS3 (RIS3CAT). PECTs are innovation-oriented integrated initiatives that are developed by a partnership of minimum four entities led by a public administration at local, county or province level. On a yearly basis, the regional government launches competitive calls for funding PECTs, which are actually addressed as RIS3 delivery tools. The budget for the 2016 call was 50 million Euros to cover 50% of the approved projects, of which 20M went to Barcelona metropolitan area and 30M to the rest. In this context, Barcelona has drafted the strategy RIS3BCN Growth, which is explicitly presented as an alignment to RIS3CAT.
Matching priority domains from regional and local levels.
This might be a first step a city takes to align itself to RIS3 at region/country level. For example, Sevilla (ES) started a bridging process of this kind in 2016 with a comparative analysis between the RIS3 priorities set at the regional level and the city´s own industrial specialisations, dynamics and assets. This analysis led to a strategic vision, the identification of sectoral priorities and policy recommendations in order to give more focus to a number of existing working areas at city level, such as entrepreneurship, workspace provision and city branding. The idea is not so much to confront vertical priorities set at both regional and local levels, but to align the existing cluster dynamics at city level and cluster initiatives, if any, to the priority domains already agreed at regional/national RIS3 level.
Re-thinking the policy-mix at city/metro level in a way that actively contributes to RIS3 roadmaps.
RIS3 type strategies consist of the definition of a specialisation pattern, together with a set of aligned horizontal policies, such as research and innovation, entrepreneurship, cluster development, internationalisation, etc. Smart specialisation can be seen as an organisational driver aimed to promote growth within a place-based, comprehensive long-term strategy to sustain competitive advantages and help to build new ones, as well as to accelerate the necessary structural changes.
Therefore, changing or just influencing the strategic agenda from existing operators is one of the main paths to move RIS3 from strategy into action. When that existing operator is a local agency of a major city with an extensive background in economic development, such a delivery channel may work as a strategic lever for success. Furthermore, in some cases, that kind of public or private-public body in charge of economic development at city level is already working actively in areas like workspace provision or inward investment and talent attraction. These work areas cannot easily be found in most of RIS3 designs at national/regional level, so the result is a refinement of the RIS3 conventional policy-mix. This is why the challenge of connecting RIS3 to the city should be addressed as a two-way bridge.
In any case, cities can take advantage of the smart specialisation concept to strengthen their own policy-mix on business-led economic development. In the frame of the InFocus network, the City of Ostrava is drafting an Integrated Action Plan oriented to talent attraction and retention. To do so, they are using the range of priority knowledge/productive domains set at RIS3-Silesian Moravia as structural guidance. On the other side, as a genuine contribution from the urban scale, Ostrava´s brand new policy on talent management will enrich the policy-mix supporting the RIS3 at regional level.
The way forward
To summarise, there is still potential to exploit regarding the contribution of cities (local authorities and their relevant subsidiaries) to RIS3 implementation. The best way to do so is not to replicate the RIS3 method automatically top-down to the local level, as this would probably lead to more fragmentation, but rather to bridge with the existing RIS3 strategies, in a kind of two-way bridge, where some innovative cities may enrich strategies as well. As well as providing a bridge with RIS3 at regional level within a vertical multi-governance approach, smart specialisation as a concept is so powerful that it can be used by cities as a crosscutting approach to boost their own work agendas on economic development.
Bilbao, the InFocus lead partner, is a good example of how to operationalise the involvement of cities as smart specialisation practitioners. In 2014, Bilbao Ekintza, the local development agency, made a step forward and organized a cluster prioritization exercise at city level, with an eye on the Basque Country RIS3. It was named “Innovation and intelligent specialisation strategy for Bilbao”. As a main result 6 domains were identified at the time and prioritized in a dynamic way according to their level of consolidation as real business frameworks: Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS), Tourism, Urban Solutions, Arts & Culture, Ecotechnology and Technologies applied to Health. In parallel, the city´s economic development policy-mix was revised, emphasizing a number of working areas such as business cooperation and clustering, entrepreneurship and attraction of investment and knowledge.
At present, within the URBACT-InFocus framework, Bilbao is going further in two mutually reinforcing directions: i) promoting more fluid and in-depth interaction with Basque RIS3; ii) and focusing on three domains out of the six above mentioned: advanced tertiary (KIBS), creative economy and digital economy, also exploring the connections among them, i.e. turning Bilbao-based KIBS sector into an engine for digital transformation, in particular regarding advanced manufacturing which is Basque RIS3´s most significant priority. In practical terms, the aim is to promote and facilitate a pipeline of projects in those domains and in close alignment with the RIS3.
To achieve this objective, Bilbao Ekintza has set up a new collaborative platform by bringing together the following necessary contributors: multi-level governance (Basque Country RIS3 management team and Diputación Foral de Bizkaia as a body with funding capacity), research centres and think tanks (Tecnalia-Technology Corporation and Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness), private sector and cluster organisations (Chamber of Commerce, IT cluster GAIA, EIKEN audiovisual and AVIC engineering and consultancy) and public and private Universities (UPV/EHU, University of Deusto and Mondragón University).
This collaborative platform is none other than the URBACT Local Group (ULG) the City of Bilbao has established in the frame of InFocus. The ULG is proving to be an effective tool to engage RIS3 regional authorities in a fruitful dialogue with the city. Other InFocus partner cities like Porto, Bucharest or Frankfurt are following in this path and more results of the approach will be shared in the Integrated Action Plans to be launched in 2018.
***
Image 3: InFocus thematic workshop, Ostrava, September 2016
Image 4: Smart specialisation as a driver to refine the urban agenda on business-led economic development
Three of the cities selected in the first call of the European Commission’s Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) initiative are also working, or have worked, within URBACT on topics similar to their UIA bids: Turin, Bologna and Rotterdam.
We investigated what made these cities successful at being involved in the two European programmes, and asked whether there is – for these cities – something like a trajectory between URBACT and UIA.
This article is the second of a series of three articles planned on the topic.
It is based on an interview with Rotterdam’s Cleo Pouw and Hendrik-Jan Bosch. Cleo isProject manager Europe for the City of Rotterdam and lead partner of the URBACT Projects My Generation, My Generation at Work, and Resilient Europe. Hendrik-Jan works as a strategic advisor for the City of Rotterdam and has helped significantly shape the UIA project BRIDGE.
Rotterdam’s love of Europe is measurable in the number of European projects and programmes it has been involved in. Cleo Pouw has been involved in various stages of European cooperation programmes and their administrative processes, in URBACT of course, but also in Life, H2020 and now UIA.
The love story between Rotterdam and URBACT started about 14 years ago: Rotterdam was already leading an URBACT network in the first period of URBACT (2002-2006) on the theme of Security in Cities (Securcity – see final report here) and Cleo Pouw first worked on URBACT at that time.
After this first experience with URBACT, Rotterdam went on and focussed on the themes of involvement of youth in policy making, and on jobs creation. At the time, Rotterdam was lobbying for the creation of the title of European Youth Capital and wanted to be the first City to hold the title, which then became an official European label.
According to Cleo, My Generation was a success because URBACT offered a lot of freedom to experiment, to include young people and to work with other cities. Building on this valuable experience, Rotterdam decided to go on working on similar topics within the My Generation at Work project, which focussed on what cities can do to increase and promote the employability and employment of young people.
Becoming a member of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) network, the City of Rotterdam has now decided to investigate, within URBACT, the issue of resilience in cities. The URBACT network is called Resilience Europe. Involving young people and getting them in the right jobs: a strong thematic link from URBACT to UIA.
The commitment of Rotterdam to involving young people and getting them to access the right jobs is a strong one. In the frame of URBACT, Rotterdam was able to experiment solutions and methods that clearly inspired the design and framing of the proposed innovative action for UIA.
This ambitious project brings together all 57 primary schools, 20 secondary schools and 3 vocational schools in Rotterdam South. The career and talent orientation programme will start in primary school (age 9) and end when students enter the labour market. The crucial element in the programme is the Career Start Guarantee: Employers will offer 600 pupils per year a Career Start guarantee (420 for technology sectors and 180 for healthcare) at the moment they enter secondary vocational education and need to make the most crucial subject and career choices.
As scale of UIA project is very large, the project was not derived directly from the Local Action Plan designed in the URBACT My Generation at Work project. However, the thematic link between the two projects is extremely strong, so strong in fact that Rotterdam chose Eddy Adams, URBACT Programme Expert, as its main UIA expert, i.e. one of the key individuals who will accompany and guide the project towards success.
URBACT provides the right tools to design innovative actions
Cleo and Henrik-Jan highlight that URBACT provided a strong and useful theoretical background and privileged access to knowledge of other European Cities’ policies.
According to them, URBACT allows the exploration of a broad set of possible interventions, and is a chance to acquire in-depth knowledge of an issue. It erodes the old ways of thinking, which provides a careful and structured way of learning.
Both also mention that URBACT provided Rotterdam with the self-confidence needed to shape and propose a truly innovative action to UIA on the topic. They insist that “the professionalism and confidence they gained through URBACT” helped them dare to think, conceive and propose an innovative action, as well as providing them with all the methodological tools needed to respond to the selection criteria of UIA. They say it also helped in building a strong and reliable local partnership.
Exchange and transfer of results of real life experiment: A possible path leading from UIA to URBACT
European Cities help and assist each other. For instance, based on the collaboration initiated within URBACT, Rotterdam recently made a presentation to 20 Polish cities on how to apply to UIA.
But the wheel goes in two directions, and the UIA experience will also provide ground for more exchange with other European cities.
Experiences of collaboration so far have shown Cleo and Hendrik-Jan the difficulties of replicating an urban solution and transfering it without having in-depth knowledge on how the other cities work. Therefore, starting from its UIA experiment, Rotterdam would consider continuing with URBACT to transfer the experience effectively to other cities.
Three of the cities selected in the first call of Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) are working or have worked within URBACT on topics similar to their UIA bids: Turin, Bologna and Rotterdam.
We decided to try to understand what made these cities successful at being involved in those two European programmes and whether there is – for these cities - something like a trajectory from URBACT, in which integrated action plans are designed, to UIA, which provides the framework and the support to implement those innovative ideas locally.
This article is the first of a planned series of three articles on the topic.
It is based on an interview with Fabrizio Barbiero, public manager at the unit of development of economic development and innovation and European Project, at the Municipality of Turin.
In Europe, Turin is one of the cities investing in developing new methods to manage ‘the commons’, for instance through the enforcement of a regulation on common goods (Regolamento Beni Comuni Urbani - approved just one year ago, and to implement social innovation, through the Torino Social Innovation Initiative (TSI), which objective is to encourage and sustain new collaborative forms of dialogue with civil society related to the management of public good/services and provision of collective public services. The TSI initiative is a multi-year programme, proposing an open platform to support bottom-up processes of urban/social innovation.
Turin’s commitment to innovation in urban practices methods and exchange at the European level translate into a long term involvement and commitment in European projects on issues related to urban planning. It started with the URBAN Programme and is now represented by its implication in two of the leading European Programmes on urban planning: URBACT and Urban Innovative Action.
For Turin: URBACT and UIA: strong thematic and methodological links
Common goods, co-creation, social innovation are at the core of the projects Turin is involved in in the two European urban programmes. When looking in detail at Boostinno (URBACT) and CO-CITY (UIA) in particular, the thematic links between the two programmes and project appear clearly. Methodological links also clearly appear between the two programmes and the several projects Turin is and has been involved in.
Turin & URBACT: a long lasting commitment to co-creation and social innovation
Turin has long been involved with URBACT: through the (now closed) projects Urbact Markets and My Generation at Work, which was about what cities, with their partners, can do to promote the employability and employment of young people. My Generation at Work was using and developing innovative methods to foster young people’s employability and the work of Turin on Social Innovation developed and deepened in this context.
Fabrizio himself has been involved directly in the My Generation at Work five years ago, at a time in which the City of Turin was committed to design a new policy to promote youth unemployment and social innovation.
“In my opinion the partnership was really good”. Fabrizio was extremely pleased by the partnership, which led the City of Turin to want to be involved in further URBACT projects, like Boostinno.
The current URBACT project Boostinno builds on the work done and expertise gained inside Generation at Work. Within this project Turin is committed to redesign Torino Social Innovation. Its focus is to enable new generation of innovative entrepreneurs to produce positive territorial impact in urban deprived areas. The City of Turin is expecting to receive funding from the national government for this.
Boostinno is focussed on enabling public administrations to play a new role as public booster and brokers/facilitators of social innovation activities/projects/policies, by driving social innovation in, through and out the public sector. It is a project led by the City of Gdańsk (Poland), involving Wroclaw (Poland), Baia Mare (Romania), Milan (Italy), Turin (Italy), Barcelona (Spain), Braga (Portugal), Paris (France), Strasbourg (France) and
Turin is also involved URB-INCLUSION on urban inclusion, led by Barcelona, one of the new URBACT Implementation Networks that deal more specifically with the challenges of implementation. In this project the City of Turin is more focussed on the topic of civic participation in order to set up new social innovation models to deliver new services for the local residents. For this project Turin has already the resources to implement the project as part of article 7 ERDF funding.
Turin & Urban Innovative Action: A Pioneering project of social innovation to combat social poverty
Turin was chosen among 378 European Cities to test further an Urban Innovative Action in the field of the commons and social innovation.
Its project CO-CITY focusses on the collaborative management of urban commons to counteract poverty and social polarisation. With this project Turin wants to involve the local residents to co-design and co-manage the public services.
CO-CITY is the UIA project of Turin focussed on the Collaborative Management of Urban Commons to Counteract Poverty and Socio-Spatial Polarisation. It involves Comune di Torino, the Università degli Studi di Torino, the Fondazione Cascina Roccafranca and ANCI, the National Association Urban Authorities. Its expected outputs are the regeneration of abandoned or underused spaces in different areas, to contribute the creation of new jobs in the social economy sector. New enterprises will emerge along the process of residents participation initiated and facilitated by the City of Turin together with the network of the Houses of the Neighborhoods.
“Co-City is an extraordinary occasion to support new forms of active participation of the citizens towards the regeneration of the City. I hope that new enterprises will be created around this new model of relation between public and private sector, generating new employment opportunities and jobs in Turin”
What links between URBACT and UIA for Turin?
We were curious to understand what other links than thematic existed between the two European urban policy programmes Turin is currently involved in.
Is there a possible trajectory between the two programmes? Did the experience in URBACT helps Turin in proposing an Innovative Idea? Are there other similarities?
URBACT Improved Turin’s capacity to develop innovative solutions and participative methods
Involvement in a community of practitioners in Europe
Through learning from other European cities and setting-up long standing relationships, URBACT helped Turin develop, test, discuss new urban programmes at the local level. The relationship with some cities, such as Rotterdam or Barcelona, has developed into one in which before launching a new local urban programme or policy, the city can contact the other cities, ask advice, comparison points and therefore improve plans for new local programmes.
Being involved in a European project helps reaching out more broadly within the city and convincing more local actors to test and implement new methods.
Being part of a European Community of Practice, of a network of cities and a permanent platform of exchange, which provides peer learning and motivation, is something very valuable, according to Fabrizio. It also helps to understand better how to develop solutions to the urban challenges of our times.
The URBACT Method: a powerful tool to design Innovation
Fabrizio insists that the experience in URBACT has helped the city to set up a successful Urban Innovative Action bid. Since their language, methodologies, and framework are quite similar, defining innovation in the urban context has become clearer and more effective. The learnings from the URBACT Method have definitely been a key element in defining and proposing a successful project for UIA.
Video: The URBACT Method video
URBACT helped a lot in highlighting the importance of the setting-up and management of a URBACT Local Group composed of various stakeholders to design new innovative projects or for instance to redesign public services.
Proposing a participative method and a new form of relationship between the municipality and citizens is also for instance at the core of Turin’s UIA CO-CITY. Within this project, the definition and implementation of several pacts of collaboration is expected to improve the participation of residents in different parts of the city and to foster the commitment of the citizens towards a more inclusive and cohesive city.
There is definitely a similarity of the methods proposed and a learning path for the city between URBACT and UIA. With CO-CITY, Turin will systematise and experiment at a larger scale, the URBACT local group aproach it has developed within its previous URBACT projects.
In reality several UIA assessment criteri, for instance the quality of the local partnership and the capacity to co-design solution, the attention to measurability correspond to key dimensions of the URBACT method.
In terms of capacity building, Fabrizio’s colleagues, who took part to the URBACT Summer University, were very eager and happy to learn new methodologies to think about urban policies and involve the local residents in local policy design. Indeed, such trainings for civil servants do not exist at local and national level.
Urban Innovative Action: Strong support to develop a pioneering local project
Citizens’ participation, co-creation, social innovation, all methods that have been developped locally in Turin also with the support of URBACT are central in CO-CITY, but at the opposite of URBACT, UIA is not focussed on exchanging ideas with other European cities, but on testing innovative and effective urban experimentations pioneering new solutions for cities. Local results are the most important output expected of the CO-CITY project.
Urban Innovative Actions is supporting its successful cities in various ways. For instance, by introducing different degrees of flexibility - in the selection of local partners, in the reduced administrative burden, in the emphasis given to measurement and monitoring, and even more importantly asking urban authorities to take a risks and therefore accepting potential failures - it aims at contributing to create urban laboratories in each city to test innovative ideas on a real urban scale, unlocking the great potential for bold innovation in cities. Fabrizio highlights how important UIA is at the local level since it brings the resources to develop a strong local partnership and innovation, a characteristic which is very valued by local political representatives.
In addition to support the most innovative urban projects in Europe, UIA also aims to capture the knowledge generated by UIA projects and to make it available to a wider audience of urban policy-makers and practitioners in Europe. On this strand of activities of UIA the potential complementarities and synergies with URBACT are evident.
Conclusion
URBACT and UIA appear to complement each other fruitfully, URBACT is as a platform to nurture, develop and exchange new ideas, solutions and practices at the European level and to implement those ideas locally. UIA provides tools and financial support to pioneer new ideas locally at a larger scale, which will make them transferable to other cities. There are plenty of innovative and ineteresting ideas and practices implemented in cities around Europe. Ensuring an effective transfer (meaning local adaptation and reuse) is one of the key objectives and aims of URBACT, through the Good Practice Call currently ongoing the new Transfer Networks, to be launched in the autumn.
