How to increase awareness of the benefits of cohesion policy across Poland, reaching a maximum number of people through various media? This was the challenge met by the “Smart City Innovation Ecosystems Festival” project, managed by Politechnika Warszawska. The project aimed at educating the general public about cohesion policy’s positive impact in a campaign running from February to July 2021.
- 14 January 2023
The festival promoted EU cohesion policy through Universities and other educational institutions in order to show how Cohesion policy influences modern cities’ development and their innovation ecosystems in the context of the ‘smart city’ concept. It did this through three principal actions.
A three-day hackathon targeted students, start-ups and PhD students. It aimed to develop smart city, digital-based solutions during the event, which took place in the R&D infrastructure created from EU's cohesion policy funds. The winning entry concerned Intelligent Healthcare Systems.
A two-day conference showing the impact of cohesion policy funds on smart city innovation ecosystems solutions in citizens’ every day life. Expert sessions includes representatives from different group of stakeholders (regional and local authorities, public administration, businesses and beneficiaries) to discuss on the current outcome and the future objectives and implementation proposals on EU policies for 2021-2027. An ebook and report were published later on the event website.
Four workshops for primary school and high school pupils presenting the CEZAMAT laboratories to young people and presenting the EU policies.
The communication actions implemented as part of “Smart City Innovation Ecosystems Festival” were very popular. The figures speak for themselves:
- 4 podcasts published
- 116 hackathon participants
- 226 participants and 44 speakers at the conference
- 4 schools involved in workshops
- 1200 journalists contacted to cover the events
- 914 pieces of press coverage
- 973 000 people reached by media coverage
- 2 000 visits to festival website