Networks and cities' news

How virtual hackathon draw Pärnu closer together

Pärnu is well known as summer tourism attraction: city center with its lovely parks and the resort area with its famous sandy beach and promenade invite tourists for long walks. You can spot remnants of distant Middle Ages, the elegant early years of the resort, the unforgettable Soviet era and the fast-paced modern development.

SDG Story: Glasgow

Glasgow’s Vision for 2030

Caceres kicks of the first Biomarket in Extremadura

Last Sunday, March 20th, Cáceres kicked off its Small Scale Action as a project partner in URBACT Tourism-Friendly Cities considering that Cáceres performance in both networks Tourism-Friendly Cities and Resourceful Cities focuses on the renovation of Ribera del Marco in order to enhance its visibility and attractiveness as the real origin of the city.

SamenMakenWeHeerlen – TogetherWeMake-Heerlen- SSA

Municipality of Heerlen drew up the Bid Book 'Urban Heerlen' in 2016. This bid book describes how Heerlen wants to develop its centre around 5 themes with 25 different ambitions. The bid book received great appreciation at the time. Many ambitions have since been realised.

Updates from the Small Scale Actions of the Tourism-friendly Cities URBACT network

This last period has shown the importance of our network even more than before, as the tourism sector has been one of the most damaged sector by the pandemic.

Now cities have the possibility to contribute to a real change becoming more able to attract tourists and to manage the effects of the tourist flows preserving at the same time the local identity and fostering a balance between the need of the visitors and the ones of the residents and the administrations. A real sustainable tourism can be part of the solution and a response to the needs of recovery that all the cities in the world, from the biggest to the smallest, are seeking to restart.

Entrepreneurship Ecosystems – a few pieces do not a jigsaw make….

Over the years I’ve worked with URBACT networks, I have written - and read - various articles on the key success factors of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, most recently co-authoring Ten Top Tips with Ceri Batchelder as part of the AS Transfer network. As I travelled to Roeselare, Belgium in March 2022 for TechRevolution 2.0.’s Transnational Event, I found myself wondering what I would learn that would add value to work already undertaken.

Fast forward a few days and once again I was in awe of our partners who - against a backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing humanitarian crisis, which meant that two partners were not even able to travel to Belgium - once again embraced everything we threw at them to both deepen their understanding of entrepreneurial economies and build their ‘ecosystems in a box’ out of lego, pipe cleaners and glue.