Networks and cities' news

"Sharing and connecting" - an effective way of Trapesa international meeting point to engage Espoo residents

With a slogan ‘sharing and connecting’ Trapesa international meeting point offers a neutral and unbiased environment for discussions, hobbies and learning, and its doors are open to all people regardless of their nationality, mother tongue, religion and cultural background. To explore the establishment and development of Trapesa, we had an interesting conversation with Raisa Lindroos, Secretary General of Filoksenia Association that is the driving force behind Trapesa. 

RU:RBAN HAS ITS OWN TRANSFER STORY: HOW TO IMPLEMENT URBAN GARDENS

The philosophy behind URBACT Transfer Networks is embedded in its name: transferring a city’s Good Practice to a group of cities that have adhered to the possibility of adopting (and adapting) such Good Practice and make it their own. All in the spirit of sharing knowledge and experience with the ultimate goal to improve quality of life, in its manifold facets, in our cities. Every Transfer Network is supposed to produce a “transfer story” which is, in not so many words, the tale of how the good practice has been transferred to other EU cities, which have been the challenges faced and the opportunities emerged from the process.

Learn together, Albergaria-a-Velha Transfer Story

This is a story about Innovation in Education and the adventure of the Municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha on the ON BOARD Transfer Network, experienced and shared with five European cities from different countries, Viladecans (Spain), Poznań (Poland), Tallinn (Estonia), Nantes (France), and Halmstad (Sweden), with the aspiration to learn together.

The importance of defining the collaboration structure and communicating in the case of public-civil partnership –Platform for Lazareti

For the last year and a half, Platform for Lazareti and Youth Center in Dubrovnik were working on establishing community centers based on the civil-public partnership. It was at the same time hard work on bettering the communication and decision-making protocols and processes between the NGOs associated with the platforms but also hard work in building trust and relationship with the representatives of the City of Dubrovnik. For now, both of the cases are successful examples, and a part of it is  due to the knowledge they've received during the „Active NGOs“ project and collaboration with the URBACT lead and ad-hoc experts. Ana Cvjetkovic from the Platform for Lazareti tells us about the main goals, accomplishments, and obstacles and gives us an invaluable insight in what is one of the most intense processes of organizational development and decision-making.

Public Procurement during and post COVID-19

The world of public procurement has increasingly changed over the past 6 years as shown by the European Commission, with its updated procurement requirements detailed in the 2014 EU Procurement Directives. However, the scale of the challenges commissioners and procurers are facing at local and city levels are still considerable when it comes to changing their culture, behaviour and practice in order to undertake procurement in a more efficient and effective way.

Strengthening Naples' Urban Commons network

The Neapolitan experience of commons started approximately 8 years ago, but much can still be done to empower and broaden citizen participation. A recap of the actions designed by Naples' URBACT Local Group inside the Civic eState project

Words by Roberta Nicchia, URBACT Local Group Coordinator, City of Naples