19 July 2023

Community of Practice on Cities

COP-CITIES Newsletter #18

Dear community members,

Welcome to the summer edition of the CoP-CITIES newsletter!

In this release, we highlight the JRC's participation in the Brussels Urban Summit, present a new JRC publication on slums and informal settlements in Europe, and give space to news from several community partners. If you are curious to know more, have a look at the next sections!

We are happy to confirm our participation in the European Week of Region and Cities (EWRC) next October in Brussels, with a session entitled ‘A fairer future for European cities: navigating urban inequalities and vulnerabilities’. The session, organised in partnership with DG REGIO, will take place on 10^th October, from 14:30 to 16:00 in the SQUARE. More details about the agenda will follow, but we can already anticipate the participation of speakers from different organisations, including Sciences Po and the city of Rotterdam. We hope to see many of you there, in order to make the discussion fruitful and rich.

Next to that, we plan to host our annual CoP-CITIES plenary meeting as a side event during the EWRC. Stay tuned for our September newsletter when we will announce more details on the plenary meeting date and content as well as let you discover the speakers invited to our main session.

For now, we wish you a good continuation of summer and a nice holiday break and we reconnect in September, recharged with new energy. As usual, do not hesitate to reach out to us to flag any initiatives and activities that can be of interest to our community.

The newsletter editorial board

Patrizia Sulis, Sjoerdje van Heerden, Silvia Iodice

Highlights

JRC at Brussels Urban Summit workshop on Homelessness

Last month the Brussels Urban Summit took place, gathering over 400 cities worldwide, and more than 2300 politicians, experts and representatives of civil society to exchange ideas and set the priorities for sustainable, affordable, and liveable cities going forward.

JRC participated in a workshop on homelessness, aimed to explore why some groups are more at risk of homelessness and why it is necessary to tailor our responses to different profiles. JRC discussed their report “Homelessness in EU cities and towns before and during the covid-pandemic”, illustrating that data collection for hard-to-reach populations comes with many challenges. Other speakers included representatives from EUROCITIES, The European Platform on Combatting Homelessness, FEANTSA, the DEVJO foundation, and NESTINVEST.

Have a look back at the programme of the Summit here.

Call for participation

European Urban Initiative

Two calls related to peer reviews that will take place in November/December 2023 are closing soon.

1. Call for Peers closing 28 July 12:00 CEST.

Share your knowledge to help cities improve their Sustainable Urban Development strategies. The target groups are urban authorities involved in Article 11 ERDF (or Article 7 ERDF in the 2014-2020 period) that would like to act as peers to support cities being peer-reviewed.

View the call here.

2. Call for City-to-City Exchanges closing 17 November 12:00 CET.

Tackle Sustainable Urban Development implementation challenges through short visits with 1-2 peer cities. The target groups are urban authorities facing a specific implementation challenge related to integrated, place-based approaches to Sustainable Urban Development within Cohesion Policy.

View the call here.

News from CoP community

Localising the 2030 Agenda

Get to know URBACT's newest knowledge hub addition - the step-by-step learning kit on localising the Sustainable Development Goals in European cities. The learning kit contains modules with city cases, useful tools and resources for the process.

You can access the learning kit here.

Interview

EUKN's contribution to the Nature Restoration Law

Martin Grisel, Director of the European Urban Knowledge Network (EUKN), has been interviewed by NetworkNature about the role of EU Member States in the context of the new EU Nature Restoration Law, the proposal by the Commission strongly welcomed by NGOs and environmental experts.

To assist Member States in the development of greener and sustainable cities, the EUKN is also contributing to the development of the Greening Cities Partnership, which is part of the Urban Agenda for the EU. The Partnership aims at enhancing the inclusion of nature in cities, by improving knowledge, regulation, and funding. This collaboration will also support the elaboration and implementation of the Nature Restoration Law.

Watch the interview here.

Latest Publications

New JRC report on slums and informal settlements in Europe

What are the opportunities offered by geospatial and earth observation techniques to monitor slums and informal settlements in Europe? Why is it necessary to do so? The report titled ‘Monitoring slums and informal settlements in Europe' illustrates the outcomes of a research activity, led by the Territorial Development Unit of the JRC together with Monika Kuffer, Professor at University of Twente, to advance the research on slums and informal settlements in Europe.

While the extent of slums and informal settlements in Europe and their population numbers are smaller than in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, such areas still exist in different forms and concern the most vulnerable individuals. The report provides an overview of geospatial and earth observation (EO) techniques for the development of monitoring systems to track the progress of SDG 11.1.1 “Proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements or inadequate housing” and the ‘Leave No One Behind’ principle of the 2030 Agenda.

You can download the report here.

How to help the tourism sector become more sustainable and reduce its impacts on cities?

This recent study, by the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II and the Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development of the National Research Council, analyses the contribution of tourism to the Sustainable Development Goals and the implementation of the circular economy model in the sector.

A new tourism approach is proposed, called “Human Circular Tourism (HCT)”, based on the circular economy model and enhancing sustainability in the tourism sector. An evaluation framework composed of a set of multidimensional indicators for assessing and monitoring the HCT is proposed, with the aim of supporting local public authorities and other tourism stakeholders in the identification of efficient policies and strategies.

You can read the publication here.

This is the bi-monthly newsletter of the Community of Practice on Cities.

If the COP-CITIES newsletter was forwarded to you and you wish to register, please Subscribe.

You can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time by updating your profile page. The European Commission is committed to personal data protection. Any personal data is processed in line with the Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. Please read the privacy statement.