Capacity-building for cities

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:

1. Enhancing cities' capabilities to design and execute Sustainable Urban Development strategies, policies, and practices.
2. 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. 

Want to know more? Check all details here (call page) and apply here (link to EU Survey application form).

Download the City-to-City Exchanges flyer.

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).

Want to know more? Check this page for all details. Check our latest call here (call closed on 13 November 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).

Coming up soon

You can find below an overview of past capacity building activities, calls and applicant webinars for 2023 and 2024.