Through capacity building, EUI aims to enhance and strengthen cities' abilities to develop Sustainable Urban Development policies, strategies, and practices in a collaborative and inclusive manner. Our capacity building approach is nurtured by the wish to create links and knowledge sharing among cities around the EU.
Drawing from previous Urban Development Network initiatives, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) knowledge and TAIEX mechanism, as well as UIA capitalization efforts, our activities focus on:
- Enhancing cities' capabilities to design and execute Sustainable Urban Development strategies, policies, and practices.
- Improving the quality of these strategies, policies, and practices both in design and execution.
The primary audience for EUI's capacity building activities includes urban practitioners and policymakers from EU cities engaged in Cohesion Policy and Sustainable Urban Development under Article 11 of the ERDF/CF Regulation and Cohesion Policy programs.
We propose three main activities : City-to-City Exchanges, Peer Reviews, and capacity building events.
You can access below the presentation of the capacity building offer done at Cities Forum in Turin on 17 March 2023. This moment marked the launch of our services.
City-to-City Exchanges
City-to-City Exchanges are in-person visits or online exchanges carried out between an applicant city and a one or two peer cities. Peer cities share new working methods and innovative approaches on specific implementation challenges identified by the applicant city. The challenges relate to the design and implementation of Sustainable Urban Development strategies.
Who can participate? Applications may be submitted by urban authorities of any size from EU Member States. Other stakeholders may participate in the exchange if justified by the urban authority.
You can apply for a City-to-City Exchange at any moment, the call is continuously open. In general, you can count on starting the actual visits three months after submitting an application.
Interested in this service, but not sure which city has expertise to share?
This form allows you to request to be put in contact with an urban authority from EUI-IA, UIA projects or Urban Agenda Partnership, in order to prepare a City-to-City Exchange application.
Your request will be forwarded to the relevant contact person. Any subsequent follow-up or discussion is carried out bilaterally without EUI involvement, subject to the interest of the urban authority being contacted.
Peer Reviews
Peer Reviews take the form of workshops in which cities are peer reviewed by other cities and relevant stakeholders in order to benchmark their Sustainable Urban Development strategies. There are two possible roles in the process: City under Review and Peer Reviewer.
Cities under Review benefit directly by getting targeted advise on improving their design and implementation of Sustainable Urban Development strategies and practices in an integrated and participative way.
Peer Reviewers benefit equally from this process as their are bringing forward their good practices and get new ideas from all the cities that are brought together by the Peer Review.
Who can participate? Applications may be submitted by urban authorities of any size from EU Member States that are involved in the design and implementation of a Sustainable Urban Development Strategy (in line with Article 11 of the ERDF Regulation).
What to know more? Check this page for all details. A new call opens in March 2024.
Capacity building events
Capacity building events comprise of a wide range of formats: workshops, seminars, etc. enabling cities to improve their capacity to design and implement Sustainable Urban Development strategies.
Events can be national (country-specific), cluster (they bring together countries that might have similar topics to treat) or EU-wide (for all EU cities).
You can find below an overview of events organised in 2023. A planning of events to be hold in 2024 will be made available online soon.
EUI past capacity-building activities and calls
Past capacity-building events:
- 21 November 2023: Cooperation across Functional Urban Areas in Hungarian cities, Budapest, Hungary
- 8-9 November 2023: Reshaping policy, unleashing talents, shifting minds for the Green Transition: a EUI capacity-building event for European cities, Tourcoing, France
- 24-25 October 2023: Delivering hig-quality Integrated Territorial Investments (ITIs) in Croatia, Zadar, Croatia
- 11 October 2023: EUI@EURegionsWeek: Supporting peer learning in post-industrial regions, Bruxelles, Belgium
- 4-5 July 2023: Supporting an integrated approach to sustainable urban development, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
- 7-9 June 2023: Delivering high-quality urban CLLD, Timisoara, Romania.
Past peer reviews:
- 28-29 June 2023: Pilot peer review, Thessaloniki, Greece.
- 28-29 November 2023: Peer review in Coimbra, Greece.
Past calls:
Call for Cities under Review to prepare autumn/winter 2023 peer reviews: 4 April to 10 July, with an interim cut-off date on 19 June 12:00 CEST.
Call for Peers for peer review : 22 June to 28 July 12:00 CEST.
Initial call for City-to-city exchanges: 4 April to 17 November 2023.
Support to applicants
Coming up soon:
11 March 2024, 14:00 CET City-to-City Exchanges online matchmaking event
9 April 2024, 10:30 CET Peer Reviews online info session
Past applicants webinars
Looking to know more about EUI capacity building activities? We are here to answer all your questions. In 2023, two applicant webinars were organised by EUI on 5 April and on 3 May. Recordings and presentations are available, on this page for 5 April and on this page for 3 May.
During both webinars, the EUI capacity building team presented the framework and methodology of city-to-city exchanges and peer reviews and answered questions from potential applicants in a Q&A session.