FAQ City-to-City Exchange

The City-to-City Exchange is open to urban authorities of all EU Member States. Urban authorities can be a city, a town, a municipality or a suburb. There is no minimum population size for participating authorities, but they must have a degree of urbanisation (density) corresponding to the categories of a city, town, municipality or suburb according to Eurostat.

Check the degree of urbanisation of your authority using this link. The municipality is eligible if it is classified as DEGURBA code 1 or DEGURBA code 2.

In addition, urban authorities may be eligible for a City-to-City Exchange, even if they are NOT DEGURBA Code 1 or 2, if they have been selected as an Article 11 city. Article 11 cities are authorities that have been awarded funding from the ERDF/Cohesion Fund for sustainable urban development projects. Under this link you can find a complete list of all Article 11 cities.

Yes. An association of urban authorities with legal status can participate, if the majority (at least 51%) of its inhabitants lives in Local Administrative Units that are defined as city, town, or suburb according to the degree of urbanisation (corresponding to DEGURBA code 1 2 of Eurostat). You can check the DEGURBA code of your urban authority using this link.

This activity is open equally to all Functional Urban Areas.

Private individuals can participate in the exchange as relevant stakeholders, alongside the applicant or peer urban authority if justified in the application. Stakeholders may be public bodies, bodies governed by public law or private bodies. The applicant urban authority can invite up to three stakeholders to participate in the exchange, while the peer urban authority can invite one stakeholder.

Yes. Although City-to-City Exchanges are in principle bilateral in nature, a second peer city may be included when the need is justified in the application form.

Yes. Applicants are required to identify peers before applying for a City-to-City Exchange. Peers are urban authorities from a different EU Member State than the applicant.

Applicants are required to indicate the name of the peer institution(s) and provisional list of staff members that will participate in the exchange in the application form. The peer must endorse the application.

However, we within the capacity building team are there to help you with this, if needed. Contact us with your queries via capacitybuilding@urban-initiative.eu or book a bilateral consultation with us via this link.

There are several databases which you can navigate to find urban good practices and potential cities from which you can learn from:

1. Contact the Urban Contact Point of your country or country of interest to help you find a relevant city
2. Use the Urban Matchmaker of Portico, a dedicated matchmaking tool to help you find peers
3. Check Urban Initiative Actions grouped by topic or the Portico urban practices 
4. The URBACT Good practices database 
5. The case studies in the Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies published by the JRC
6. The case studies in the Policy Atlas of Sustainable Urban Development for Small Urban Areas published by the JRC
7. The Interreg Europe Good practices database features local, regional and national policy solutions

We can also help you by establishing communication between you and the cities we work with as part of our other activities and which you may be interested in working with. You may use this form to request to be put in contact with another urban authority from an Urban Innovative Actions project or an Urban Agenda for the EU Partnership.

The call for City-to-City Exchanges is open on a continuous basis. This means that cities can apply for their exchange whenever they want/need to.

Evaluations will be carried out by the European Urban Initiative on a rolling basis and cities should receive a response to their application within a maximum of one month.

Yes. There is no limit to the number of applications that can be submitted or approved per applicant. However, applications from urban authorities that have not benefitted from an approved City-to-City Exchange are prioritised.

A City-to-City Exchange is required to focus on a specific policy challenge that relates to Sustainable Urban Development.

Applicants are required to define in the application form a specific policy challenge that consists of thematic and operational issues. The challenge should be as focused as possible to allow for an effective learning process between the applicant and the peers.

For a non-exhaustive list of potential thematic and operational challenges that may be addressed, see section ‘2.1.2 Thematic scope’ in the ‘City-to-City Exchanges: Guidance for Applicants’.

You can also have a look at the approved Exchanges here.

City-to-City Exchanges stand out for their flexibility and adaptability to the needs of the applicant and are therefore an effective measure in a variety of situations:

• Visiting and receiving peers from other European cities can be used to learn about specific best practices to better implement sustainable urban development projects
• An exchange can be useful to acquire information on a topic of interest in order to better define and develop a planning strategy.
• It can be useful for cities to start developing a work relation, or it  can be used to continue and prolong exchanges started in other contexts
• The exchange can also be well combined with other activities of the European Urban Initiative. A city that has participated in a Peer Review can easily use an exchange to focus on one of the good practices proposed by a Peer Reviewer and visit them in person.

You can find inspiration by looking at the list of past exchanges to see how other cities have organised their exchange.

City-to-City Exchanges offer short-term opportunities for peer learning. An exchange can consist of between one to three visits, with one visit lasting between two to five days. All visits must be completed within 5 months of notification of approval (e.g., for an exchange approved on 10 May consisting of three visits, all must be completed by 10 October).

Financial support is offered to City-to-City Exchange participant urban authorities. The financial support is provided under the form of lump sums and is paid directly to each participating city (applicant city and peers). The expenses covered are travel costs and per diem (accommodation and subsistence), plus staff costs (only for the peers).

A first budget must be submitted within the application form. The budget to be reimbursed will be calculated after the exchange and is based on the actual number of participants that participated in the exchanges. Once approved, the reimbursement will be paid into the bank account of the applicant and peer urban authorities after the exchange.

The main value of a City-to-City Exchange is for urban authorities to connect and learn from each other. The financial support offered to participants is there to facilitate this connection.