Networks and cities' news

Catch up on the latest updates from cities working together in URBACT Networks. The articles and news that are showcased below are published directly by URBACT’s beneficiaries and do not necessarily reflect the programme’s position.

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    THE COM’ON CHRONICLE (Issue #1: November 2025 – August 2026)

    Understanding before translating: How five European cities want to improve and rebuild their youth participatory budgeting (YPB) based on the Com’ON Cluj good practice

    Nils Scheffler

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  • Com’ON! How a Romanian city empowered young people that their ideas could change their community. And now it’s going European!

    In Cluj-Napoca, a deliberate format in youth democracy has funded more than 1,000 initiatives since 2015. Now five cities across Europe are learning its secrets.

    It started with a simple, almost naïve premise: what if you gave a group of youngsters €1,000, no strings attached, and trusted them to improve their neighbourhood?

    Nils Scheffler

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  • How does participation lead to transformation?

    Give teenagers €1,000, no strings attached, trust them to make their city better, step back and watch what happens.

    That was the bet Cluj-Napoca made in 2015. A decade later, it has paid off more than 1,000 times. Now comes a more complicated question: can a model built in Cluj-Napoca work in four other European cities?

    Under the URBACT-funded Com'ON City transfer network, five cities are working together until 2028 to adapt this model to their own local realities: Leeuwarden (Netherlands), Piacenza (Italy), Valongo (Portugal), Veszprém (Hungary) and Cluj-Napoca as lead partner.

    Alin Sutea

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  • Can you transfer trust?

    For more than ten years, Com'ON, a youth participatory budgeting programme from Cluj-Napoca (Romania), has trusted young people with public resources, inviting them to propose ideas, vote for the projects they believe in and turn them into reality. Hundreds of community initiatives later, this principle, tested in Cluj-Napoca, is being taken further through Com’ON City.

    Alin Sutea

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