Dear Members of the Community of Practice on Cities,

Spring has officially started, and brings with it a sense of hope, despite the current restrictions in place in many European cities. We hope that as the weather gets warmer and vaccination campaigns progress across Europe and globally, that continued steps will be taken to ease all our lives while ensuring continued safety.

Cities have a key role to play in ensuring awareness, acceptance and efficient distribution of vaccinations amongst their citizens. They will also be vital in the implementation of the Member State recovery plans, which bring with them a strong push for urban regeneration.

This newsletter aims to keep you all up-to-date on recent relevant events, webinars and on-going research projects, as well as forthcoming activities. Please do let us know if you have any items you would like to share in a following edition or any suggestions via the Community of Practice coordinator.

We hope you appreciate this edition, and wish you all a productive Spring and a relaxing and revitalising Easter break. We also look forward to seeing many of you at our first CoP meeting of the year on the 28th of April.                                                                                             

The Editorial Team

Ine Vandecasteele, Jean-Philippe Aurambout, Patrizia Sulis