Networks and cities' news

£5M INVESTMENT TO BOOST THE GROWTH OF SOUTH YORKSHIRE’S TECH SECTOR

Innovative tech entrepreneurs across South Yorkshire are set to benefit from a £5.9m project to turbocharge the region’s business support and investment provision.

Barnsley's Digital Campus gets a new look and name

A bold new visual identity and a clear sense of place and purpose has been launched for Barnsley’s digital campus.

Perspectives on resilience for cities: what next for innovation and collaboration in a time of COVID-19 and towards COP26?

What powerful lessons can be learned from UK cities implementing innovative practice?

How can cities build resilience in times of crisis when innovating with communities?

How can cities link wider funding to transferrable innovation for greater system-wide resilience (environmental, social, economic and governance)?

What are the next steps for cities?

Innovato-R - Transfer Story from Porto

Porto, a Proud Partner of Innovato-R, where Everyone's an Innovator!

Transnational cooperation in a pandemic situation, the story of Active Citizens network

The Covid-19 profoundly shook the world. No one was at rest. Everyone had to learn new ways of living, new ways of working, new ways of communicating, new ways of socializing. And obviously, European level cooperation programmes such as URBACT had to completely review the way it was functioning. Indeed, Action Planning Networks (but not alone) mostly rely on what is called transnational exchanges, in other words, in city administration meeting with other city administrations from all over Europe. From Estonia to Portugal, from Germany to Romania, from Republic Czech to France or Italy, partners meet, exchange, learn from one another and experiment new paths towards implementing greater participatory democracy in local governance. The power and originality of such networks, not only rely on transnational exchanges but also rely on the field experience, on “seeing one another’s reality” on the ground. But, obviously, the Covid situation made these physical encounters and exchanges absolutely impossible. Therefore, and like everyone else, Active Citizens had to move from convivial, lively physical gatherings to very unstable and uncomfortable online meetings. Everyone had to learn fast and adapt quickly. No choice.

Citizen participation? Hell no!

Citizen participation? Hell no! is a card game composed of 42 cards which are 42 reasons, arguments, pretexts, etc. for NOT doing any citizen participation! We all know, indeed, that not everyone – especially within public authorities and both from the elected officials side or the civil servants one – is keen on developing citizen participation. Not everyone is convinced of its added value, not only for democracy but also for better policies and services. Opening governance to a form of co-creation and co-decision process with citizens is quite uncomfortable for most people who hold a certain level of power (again both from the elected officials and civil servants side). What are the arguments of those who are against or at least ‘not convinced’ by citizen participation? What are you often told? What are the critiques of citizen participation that you hear?