Urban Agenda

In 2018 the European Commission launched the European Sustainability Award to reward inspiring cases of initiatives that are turning the global Sustainable Development Goals into concrete solutions and opportunities. For this year's edition, the theme of the award is “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality”. The competition is open to 4 stakeholder categories (Youth; Public bodies; Private bodies and Civil society). The deadline for applications is 14 September 2018.

Registration is still open for the Urban Development Network workshop in Rome, Italy, on 12-13 June 2018. The workshop is open to (metropolitan) cities of Italy, implementing sustainable urban development in accordance with Article 7 of Regulation 1301/2013 (ERDF), as well as to Managing Authorities. Deadline to Register is the 4th June.

STRAT-Board is an interactive mapping tool that provides a visual overview of Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) and Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) strategies currently implemented across Europe. So far, almost one thousand strategies have been mapped within 28 countries. STRAT-Board has been jointly developed by DG REGIO and DG JRC under the umbrella of the Knowledge Centre for Territorial Policies. The Pre-Release is now publicly accessible under the link below.

The call for applications to become a member/coordinator of one of the two new Urban Agenda Partnerships, on Security in public spaces and on Culture and cultural heritage is open until the 15 July. All interested Member States, Partner States and Urban authorities, including regions, city consortiums and national city umbrella organisations can apply.

Urban Development Network is organising workshops in Romania (21 May Bacau), Italy (Rome 12-13 June) and in the Baltic States (Liepāja Latvia 27-28 June). For more information about these events and how to register please follow our InfoRegio website.

The terms of reference for fourth Call for Proposals will be published in April. The call will open in October. This year, a new topic for UIA has been launched: Urban Security. Urban Security is the newest addition to the UIA topics, which is why it has been added in the 4th call.

URBACT is organising their third City Festival in Lisbon on 13 and 14 September 2018 this year, on providing solutions to major urban challenges. Registration will open May 2018 at the latest.

This year, the EWRC will take place from 8 to 11 October 2018 in Brussels. The online registration will open on 9 July. If you are interested to organise a workshop, you should apply before end of March.

With minus 15 degrees, a meter of snow but beautiful sunshine against the backdrop of wonderful mountains, the Urban Development Group (UDG) Group met on 1st March in the National Congress Centre in Sofia to discuss the progress of the 12 urban partnerships. Much attention went to the ‘Bratislava’ Partnership’s draft Action Plans (Circular Economy, Digital Transition, Urban Mobility) and to the progress in the Jobs & Skills Partnership. Both UDG members and Coordinators present shared their enthusiasm on the progress made.

The Urban Innovative Actions Secretariat conducted a series of interviews with the projects selected under the topic "Circular economy", with a special focus on soil management. What is the most innovative elements of their project? What are the main changes they are expecting? What are the main challenges they are confronted with? Hear the feedbacks from BRICK-BEACH project from velez-Malaga, who explains how they intend to regenerate 800 meters of beach with an innovative environment-friendly process.

The Partnership on Climate Adaptation has identified various bottlenecks related to the cities capacity to adapt to climate change and would like to see how relevant these bottlenecks are according to other cities in Europe. To that aim, a questionnaire has been designed to be filled in quickly (less than 5 minutes) and translated in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian.

Commissioner Moedas launched the 2018 iCapital awards at the EU Covenant of Mayors Ceremony on 22 February 2018. The deadline for applications is 21 June 2018.

This document lists calls for innovation actions (demonstration projects) in which cities are a crucial part of the consortium applying for EU funding. These three calls are part of Societal Challenge 5 on 'Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials.

This document provides an overview of the main EU Research and Innovation (R&I) actions for and with cities, promoted both at the European and international level to foster sustainable urban development.

Call for proposals including protection of public spaces: cities can apply (at least 2 entities from at least 2 Member States). In order to support the implementation of the Counter-Terrorism Package, the Commission has published within the framework of the Internal Security Fund – Police a call for proposals with the total amount of EUR 18 500 000.

The Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) Initiative has launched its third Call for Proposals. The call is aimed at providing urban areas throughout Europe with resources to test new and unproven solutions to address urban challenges. The call opened on 15 December and will close on 30 March 2018 at 2pm CET.