This Action contributes to the Partnerships´ general aim to improve air quality in European cities by helping policymakers better understand and meet European air quality directives. The output was a position paper that reviews interactions between different regulations, and the implementation of air quality legislation providing information on funding mechanisms and knowledge sharing. The position paper was developed through a public consultation, and in liaison with the Partnership on Urban Mobility and the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. The position paper Ambient Air Quality Directives is available online.

Almost 3/4 of Europeans live in cities, which are the immediate level of intervention in dealing with threats to human health coming from pollutants. However, air quality planning in the EU does not always fall under the responsibility of cities. This raises two needs to improve coordination between different levels of governance, and to improve coordination within cities between sectors that impact air quality levels. In order to address this, the Partnership developed a Code of Good Practice and a European Catalogue of Air Quality Measures in order to share information on air quality measures and facilitate their comparative analysis.

Various EU and national funds are available for the design and implementation of pollution policies. However, there is an overall lack of specific funding programmes for air quality projects, and they are generally difficult to access. This action aimed to address this by developing a user-friendly set of guidelines on financing air quality plans, which includes recommendations for improving existing funding instruments on air quality and making them more targeted.

Air quality is a major determining factor for quality of life. This action aims to help local policymakers and practitioners better understand the health impacts of pollution. The result was a Health Impact Assessment tool, which measures the health gains and costs of different urban planning measures. It is available online as a downloadable Excel spreadsheet, in which variables (e.g. population or concentrations of atmospheric pollutants) can be inserted to conduct a health impact assessment analysis. The tool is supported by user-friendly, step-by-step instructions and a background document report.

The general public in Europe is often not aware of measures in place to improve air quality, neither of the negative impacts of poor air quality on their health. The Partnership has found that this represents a barrier to the effectiveness of air quality policy measures, and that increased public awareness is essential to improve support for air quality management measures. Through this action, the Partnership has developed a communication toolbox and training course for awareness-raising strategies on air quality issues and solutions, thereby giving cities a resource for engaging with the wider public on this topic.

The shift towards a circular economy is expected to begin in urban areas where the economic, social and territorial impact is greater and the conditions for integrated interventions are met. Therefore, it is necessary for the European Union's Cohesion Policy to mainstream the circular economy, and provide the required funding through the European Structural and Investment Funds. This action lead to the elaboration of a detailed set of legislative options and complementary recommendations that could be useful to the Commission services in charge of planning the European Cohesion Policy post 2020.

Cities often lack awareness of the existing sources of funding and financing for circular economy investments the conditions for accessing and/or blending them, and knowledge on how to design and set up funding programmes for circular economy projects. The guide being under this action will help public and private actors identify and apply for suitable sources of funding and financing for their circular city projects. The guide will also support funders in assessing and providing funding to circular projects. The guide will be presented at CITIES forum 2020.

The majority of cities in the EU currently lack comprehensive strategies for the circular economy that go beyond the utility and waste management sector. The aim of this action is to contribute to the creation of an openly shared knowledge basis that can inspire and guide cities in their journey towards a circular economy. First, it will work towards this by compiling freely available relevant information and resources on the development of the circular economy in cities. Then, it will work towards promoting the development and dissemination of new information on the subject, with a focus on their practical implementation.

To enable the transition to a circular economy, there needs to be a stronger focus on waste prevention, re-use and recycling in local waste management. Cities should make it easier to reduce waste and develop more sustainable consumption patterns. This action aims to facilitate this through the establishment of Urban Resources Centres – physical centres that enable sustainable consumption within a city, provide education on waste prevention and facilitate re-use, repair and recycling. This will be done through a report investigating their potential, enabling peer-to-peer exchange, and providing information on alternative forms of funding.

The Collaborative Economy is a new, rapidly developing economic paradigm, and is the driving force behind many circular economy initiatives. Due to its novelty and complexity, it remains inadequately understood by many practitioners. This action involves the creation of a holistic-created and up-to-date knowledge pack on the Urban Circular Collaborative Economy. With such a pack, stakeholders will be able to make the most of the collaborative economy’s benefits and anticipate and mitigate possible negative impacts.

In the context of waste management, regulations are not always optimised and may even be counterproductive for the circular economy. In cities, such barriers become apparent when recycling household waste and when preparing re-use initiatives, such as setting up repair centres. The Partnership will assess these legal and policy frameworks in order to gather more precise and comprehensive information on the obstacles and drivers for boosting the use of secondary raw materials from waste streams. It will lead to policy recommendations to adapt or complement existing frameworks in order to facilitate this.

Efficient re-use of water is essential in the transition towards a circular economy. Increasing the available volume of re-used water for appropriate use (i.e. street cleaning) would reduce demands on scarce drinking water. The Partnership calls for robust and comprehensive EU legislation to create an environment where cities will develop and implement solutions for water re-use as part of a strategy for better water management and a transition towards a circular economy. To help drive this forward, the Partnership developed a position paper which was fed into ongoing revisions of EU strategies on water and wastewater.

Transitioning towards a circular economy implies improved resource efficiency, meaning reducing of the use of virgin resources and increasing the use of secondary resources. Supporting and enabling local actors to identify and exploit these opportunities may help to speed up cities’ transition. This action addresses this through the development of a roadmap which enables cities to develop an urban resource management plan. In this roadmap, the three main elements of resource management will be incorporated - mapping of resources and resource flows - brokerage facilities to bridge the gap between supply and, - demand and monitoring results.

What can cities do to ensure underused spaces are re-used and become attractive again – how can citizens help shape this process? And how is the circular economy connected to this? The circular economy presents an opportunity for citizens and urban authorities to rethink their cities. In a circular city, abandoned or unused buildings are opportunities and valuable resources places of interaction that support their neighbourhood. This action aims to provide guidance to policymakers seeking to develop and implement different solutions for circular reuse of space and buildings as a part of a strategy for better urban management.

Through the work of implementing circular economy at the local level, cities have experienced the need to develop monitoring indicators to be able to report on their work. The Partnership has identified the lack of such indicators as a main barrier faced by cities when implementing circular economy strategies. Under this action, the Partnership developed a guidance document with proposals for city indicators on a transition towards a Circular Economy. The issues and mapping paper is available online.

Pay As You Throw (PAYT) schemes charge citizens a levy for generating waste, and have been deemed effective in promoting source separation. By offering door-to-door collection and tracking residual waste and recycling city wide, it can greatly increase recycling, as the system rewards people and business who separate waste and penalises those who do not. This action has developed a PAYT toolkit to support cities, providing guidelines and workshops thus making it easier for cities to set the right price level and monitoring systems so PAYT systems can be installed for maximum effectiveness.

Decision makers should be provided with information on the regulatory aspects for boosting an urban circular bioeconomy in EU cities, with special reference to the production of urban biowaste-based products. This action will provide a paper presenting the regulatory aspects (including obstacles and drivers) of legislation influencing the production of biobased products (e.g. biobased chemicals, plastics, fertilisers, etc.) from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and urban wastewater sludge. The outcomes of this analysis will be shared with the European Commission to improve existing legislation in this policy area.

Climate adaptation requires a long-term strategy, for which multilevel strategic spatial planning and urban development planning are some of the best tools. Often, these tools are not detailed enough, or do not contain the relevant information to be used by the target audience (decision makers of municipalities). This action therefore aims to collect and analyse all available multilevel regulation tools on urban development and planning regulations in the context of multilevel climate adaptation strategies. This will generate conclusions and suggestions for regulations and programmes which will be made available for use.

Economic cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) are used to help provide the justification for project approval. CBAs can be particularly challenging for climate adaptation projects due to high levels of uncertainty, and the difficulty in estimating future benefits and avoided losses. As a result, it has been difficult for financial institutions to develop quick and cost-effective in-house CBAs that permit robust decision making for adaptation projects. This action proposes the analysis of existing methodologies and good practices of economic analysis of climate adaptation to develop a toolkit for practitioners.

The accessibility of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) by cities and towns is limited due to the complexity of fulfilling all requirements. It is necessary to define the barriers encountered by ERDF funding applicants and identify solutions to overcome them. The aim is that these be included as recommendations for the Operational Programmes of the ERDF to improve accessibility. They will also identify where bureaucracy could be diminished and how more funds could be allocated to climate adaptation projects.

The LIFE programme is an EU funding instrument for environment and climate adaptation projects. The action aims to enhance cities' capacity to access the funding available under this programme by upscaling existing national frameworks that support cities, and by making concrete suggestions that cities can implement which will improve their access to the LIFE programme, including access to technical assistance resources.

Effective tools for territorial analysis are required in order to plan effective climate adaptation strategies. Information available from the Copernicus Climate Change Service can be used freely, and helps cities formulate effective adaptation strategies. However, there is a gap between the knowledge available and potential users. This gap can be bridged by targeted training tools. This action will develop such tools in the form of training sessions, a workshop and a webinar, improving the ability of local authorities to use this resource to and develop more effective climate adaptation strategies.

A series of tools, guidelines and resources useful to city-level climate adaptation are available through Climate-ADAPT, the 'one-stop shop' for adaptation information in Europe. However, local practitioners have difficulties selecting the resources appropriate to their situation. The information on EU funding for urban adaptation requires more promotion, also through best practice case studies. This action aims to enhance the usability and local content of the platform to increase its value for municipalities.

Climate adaptation measures sometimes require substantial up-front investments that can only be secured with sufficient knowledge, political backing and coordination at city level. This action targets this issue by delivering training on climate adaptation to local politicians. The sessions focus on the benefits of climate adaptation, how to deal with them in a city, and how to communicate with citizens and involve different actors. They also help raise awareness of the costs of inaction. The final outcome of the sessions are that politicians are able to better implement concrete adaptation measures in their cities.

Stakeholder engagement is key in municipal policy-making and climate adaptation planning, and additional efforts are needed to raise awareness among stakeholders on adaptation-related issues. This can be done by encouraging stakeholder consultation as common practice at the municipal level. Through this action, the Commission and its initiatives for cities (e.g. the Covenant of Mayors and URBACT) will explore ways to encourage collaborative approaches where stakeholders have their say in the decision-making at local level. This will ensure a greater awareness and commitment of citizens and other local stakeholders in climate adaptation policies.

Climate related damage is expected to increase due to increasing incidents of extreme weather. This will imply financial burdens on governments and citizens. Risk transfer and disaster risk response are important elements of strategies on adaptation to climate change. The insurance sector and public sector at municipal level do not share their information on disaster loss data, which may result in higher damages, recovery costs and premiums charged by insurers. This action investigates and promotes open access of insurance data for climate risk management.

Climate adaptation often calls for the development long-term strategies, which is not always the main dimension of political will and decision making at the municipal level. This represents a distinct weakness for municipalities in the Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy application process. This action aims to strengthen the role and reinforce the commitment of (sub-) national government associations as facilitators for local municipalities to implement their climate adaptation strategies.

This Action acts as a tool for regulating the new spread phenomena of the sharing economy. The goal is to tackle problems of gentrification and touristification of cities. Under this Action, a report on the state of the art of trends and impacts of the Short Term Rentals (STR) in cities during COVID will be produced, as well as a peer exchange among cities and a proposal for better regulation.

This Action foresees spreading initiatives to create a “diffused cultural framework”. The Action will deploy a number of singular cultural activities in the public domain, reconquering public spaces and promoting cultural consumption. In addition, the Action aims to develop a model to re-activate culture and cultural sectors in times of crisis through structured and planned cultural procurement. Among the delivered outputs are a myriad of tools, guidelines and methodologies, a good practice catalogue and a procurement model.

This Action seeks to address the lack of physical spaces to experiment with Cultural creation and artistic expression through CHUME - creative hubs that constitute a platform and framework to strengthen artistic production and innovation, supporting local economy and cultural offer, promoting culture to enhance local identities and as a launch-pad for cultural and creative sector projects and initiatives.

The Action deals with the innovative re-use of dismissed or abandoned open spaces or buildings for socio-cultural purposes through active participation (collaborative management), aiming to smooth processes of transformation and adaptive re-use of abandoned/dismissed spaces through an analysis of existing practices and regulations, followed by a proposed model to foster collaborative management as a systematic method.

The aim of the Action is to raise awareness for public libraries and their additional tasks as well as their contribution to successful social urban development on the European and national level. The objective is to involve public libraries in European policies, programmes and initiatives and to help them, not only financially, to be places for the entire European society and key institutions for democratic participation.

This Action aims to investigate how integrated urban planning, which considers the whole built environment, including Cultural Heritage, can be made obligatory in all activities with a spatial impact by developing a model for urban strategic planning that combine all urban cultural fragments in a coherent and effective strategy of heritage enhancement at the local level.

This Action addresses the need for cities and tourist sites have to become Smart Destinations by promoting sustainable and “safe” tourism by managing tourist flows to balance overcrowded destinations/less visited sites and (with respect to the Covid-19 crisis) safeguarding and protecting health of tourists and locals. Under this Action, the Partnership will develop a new indicator set for data collection and smart use applied to the management of tourist flows.

The overall objective of this Action is to foster the integration of urban built heritage into Disaster Risk Management (DRM), climate change and environmental plans and policies at the local level. To achieve this, the Action aims at establishing recommendations and guiding principles for relevant local authorities and other relevant actors, including citizens.

The European Green Deal fosters an ecological reconversion of urban areas, yet there is no common understanding of what this means and there is the need to prevent the loss of cultural heritage values in the process. Therefore, this Action is a realistic feasibility study on a possible European Observatory to be built to avoid fragmentized practices in this fundamental field.

This Action focuses on how to strengthen the “Dissonant” (or controversial) cultural heritage by integrating it in urban and regional planning as well as tourism concepts as a fundamental mean to educate, transmit history and nurture democracy building in Europe while – at the same time – enabling those stigmatised neglected areas to use their local economic and touristic potential.

The Action is aimed at identifying cities’ specific research needs (through cultural leaders from city administration) to better plan future EU calls for proposals on research, to guarantee that the results of these research projects are used at the local level to improve cultural policies, and to contribute to the overall reinforcement of cultural offers in European cities.

Digital competence is a basic need for citizens working, living and learning in the knowledge society. To improve EU citizens’ digital competence, the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp) was developed by the Commission in 2013. However, there is insufficient awareness and use of the tool. This action aims to promote DigComp by examining how existing and developing digital competence strategies address the identified components of the framework- privacy, security, etc…

We live in a digital society, where online services and digital resources enable mobility, access to services, and employability, among others. Millions of people across Europe lack the basic digital skills needed to make use of these services and resources. This action seeks to tackle this by developing a neighbourhood instrument which establishes access points where people can get support and training for digital services. These points will be established in places where people usually meet, to ensure universal and non-discriminatory access. The pilot cities are Helsingborg (Sweden)Oulu (Finland) and Sofia (Bulgaria).

Cities and Regions – all over Europe and of all sizes - must be part of the digital transition. They have to make decisions about technical and other infrastructure, services and data policy, a task which is hugely knowledge intensive. Therefore, the development of a curriculum for the digital transformation at the local level is necessary. This action will do this by developing a capacity building programme on digitalisation for civil servants at local level.

Digital progress is transforming European economies and societies. Cities are searching for new ways to provide services for their citizens, who in turn expect services to be simple, transparent and user-friendly. This action aims to help cities do this by developing a strategy for the development of an e-government platform. It will create an open source toolbox where practitioners can find relevant instruments, such as the Digital Service Infrastructure Building Blocks (eID, eSignature, eDelivery etc,).

Digital performance in Europe is currently measured at the Member State level by the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), an index summarising progress on connectivity, digital skills, use of internet, integration of digital technology by businesses and digital public services. However, the same index for European cities is missing. This action aims to create such an index, which would be measured at a local level entitled DESI local. This would function as a first step towards understanding digital performance at urban level, and is a great opportunity to address local policies and increase the use of digital services for citizens.

There is an on-going discussion on how to make the taxonomy of data (as a normalised classification) available to and endorsed by all cities in Europe. The aim of this action is to define concepts that are too fuzzy to be used efficiently, such as "public" and "private" data. A normalised data taxonomy is useful in driving data strategies. This taxonomy will not be compulsory, and should be seen as a guide to help cities. A data taxonomy has therefore been compiled, containing a hierarchical classification of data based on shared characteristics. The main goal is to have shared definitions for all types of data.

Current legislation does not guarantee public authorities free access to data generated in cities, unless this is contractually agreed upon in advance. Public authorities, citizens and local businesses must have access to data collected in public spaces where this would be in the general interest and would improve the functioning of cities. This action aims to support the development of EU-level regulations that allow access and re-use of data collected in public spaces for the development of new services and solutions for and in cities. It involves the preparation of a proposal on EU regulation, addressed to the EU institutions.

This Action is focused on citizen participation in the urban planning process with the aim to support the citizen centric planning with a standardized Participatory Data Specification (PDS), which once adopted as a standard would bring lots of benefits for all the parties in a participation process.

As the importance of personal data in society expands, it becomes increasingly urgent to ensure that individuals are in a position to know and control their personal data. In the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into application in May 2018, which strengthens individual rights with regards to data. The MyData model is aligned with the GDPR and can support its implementation. This action seeks to promote a human-centered approach to personal data. The outputs are a common understanding of the use of personal data and concrete practices in personal data, such as templates for the terms of use and conditions in sharing data.

Cities often make insufficient use of resources and innovation potential due to a lack of information and communication. The objective of this action is to set up an innovation acceleration platform that works as an instrument for cities to share experiences on different activities and processes regarding the development and application of digital solutions. While cities can use the accelerator for sharing knowledge about different practical solutions through a lessons-learned approach, this action focuses on providing tools which cities can use to build their own innovation ecosystems.

Cities need to define how to exploit digitalisation and new technologies in order to best serve their citizens. There are two main challenges what do cities need to do (and invest in) to create an adaptive digital infrastructure? And how can cities exploit new technology as part their digital infrastructure? This action aims to address this by - building a digital guide which helps cities and countries implement new technologies (from an ethical, technical, procurement and legal perspective), and deliver continuous input for European legislation and, - a white label for cities on how to implement (and invest) in digital infrastructure.

There is an increasing need for innovative ways to exploit opportunities for digital transition in the urban context and cities need to adopt appropriate business models that should be the result of co-creation between cities with similar enough challenges and objectives for digital transition. This action will develop a business approach and city tools for digital transition, which acknowledges the scalability, sustainability, replicability and adaptability of citizen-centric and inclusive digital services.

The full benefits of 5G as a key enabler for digital transition in cities can only be fully taken advantage of when the mobile communication market is opened for new innovative services through the establishment of local 5G networks. The objective of this action is the promotion of locally deployed 5G networks, to enable digital transition in cities. This will has been done through the development of a practical framework for cities and countries to implement 5G networks as innovation platforms supporting the development of new technology.

Digital transition revolutionises the European urban landscape. The challenge is to find financing tools that enable true transition and accelerate the adoption of new processes and solutions in cities. The objective of this action is to develop a Digital Transition Funding Programme that enables diversified projects and combines different sectors. In order to take different digital maturity levels in cities into account, there will be benchmark tool and mentoring to help applicants apply for funds. The output will be Framework to be proposed to the European Commission for a funding programme to support cities in digital transition.

One of the major zero carbon goals for cities is to equip buildings with sustainable heating systems. In the future, sustainable heating systems will often be developed for multiple consumers and buildings at the neighbourhood or district level. With this mind, this action will generate a paper for the European Commission that argues for the creation of a new governance body– the ‘Financing for district energy’ task group. The task group will bring district energy and financing experts together to share experiences, and identify the most appropriate sources of funding for sustainable district energy.

Currently, the EU produces more waste heat than the heat demand of its entire building stock. Waste or secondary heat sources could displace a significant amount of the primary energy demand in cities, and form an essential component of a cost-effective energy transition. This action will develop a position paper setting out the barriers and proposing potential solutions. These will be identified through consultation and workshops with heat network operators, cities and waste heat producers. Such solutions would make use of existing policy and regulatory levers while suggesting new ideas and viable financial incentives.

The energy transition demands a complex, decentralised energy system that is best achieved through energy master planning - a spatial and sometimes temporal approach to determining the energy needs of a locality, combining a variety of power and heat sources. Energy master planning is a complex activity, and there is limited support available for cities to develop this. There is also a growing movement in Europe to decentralise energy infrastructure, and thus a need to adapt the governance of energy systems. This action will develop a supporting document that can assist cities and municipalities in adopting the energy master planning process.

There are around 250 million homes in the EU which will need to be retrofitted before 2050 in order to meet climate goals and deliver adequate heating, a process which requires appropriate funding mechanisms. The creation of ‘Deployment Desks’ (dedicated public offices which would function mainly as project development units) offers a potential solution to this challenge. The idea is that they function as one-stop-shops for municipalities and property owners. The action will provide guidance on how to create, develop and operationalise the 'Deployment Desk' concept in cities and regions.

Large scale investments for the energy transition in urban areas require tremendous amounts of funding. As of this moment, there is no dedicated work programme in EU funding schemes that funds large-scale investments for the energy transition in urban areas. This action will work towards a dedicated funding stream for large-scale energy transition investments in urban areas, as part of one of the European funding instruments, such as Horizon Europe or LIFE. It will provide a concrete overview of State Aid exemptions that cities can use as guidance for implementing energy transition projects.

An increasing number of European cities find it difficult to provide adequate and affordable housing. Social and affordable housing waiting lists have reached historical highs, and homelessness has increased in many cities. State support, especially in the form of public investment in social and affordable housing, has generally declined in the last decade. Through this action, the Partnership provided guidance on how to make state support available for social and affordable housing, looking at how such challenges can be overcome.

In recent years, there has been a decline in public investment in social and affordable housing across the EU. To address this, national and local authorities must be able to adopt adequate housing policies, including state aid measures, to create favourable conditions for investment in social and affordable housing. For this to happen, there is a need for capacity building and knowledge exchange. This action aimed to provide this, and the output was the organisation of a workshop in May 2018, focussing on how current EU regulations impact public investment in affordable housing and the application of state aid rules.

The Partnership’s analytical position paper ‘Guidance Paper on EU Regulation and Public Support for Housing’ (see Action 1) highlights that Services of General Economic Interest  (SGEI) in housing should be principally guided by specific national, regional or local requirements, since local authorities have the competence to identify and address local housing needs. The Housing Partnership identified that a narrow definition of the target group in the SGEI decision was one of the main sources of legal uncertainty regarding affordable housing investment and through this action submitted a proposal to revise it.

Cities, urban areas, regions and countries across the EU are faced with the task of ensuring their citizens have access to affordable housing. One of the biggest barriers to this is a widespread lack of awareness of available solutions. To address this challenge, the Partnership developed a database gathering best practices in social and affordable housing. The first prototype gathered a random sample of 30 projects under 9 different categories. The link to the first prototype of the database is available online.

Throughout the EU, housing providers are looking for innovation in affordable housing solutions. However, knowledge sharing and exchange is mostly organized on an independent basis (city-to-city) within the framework of organisations like Housing Europe, or through working groups in city exchange networks. The aim of the Partnership is to link its findings and use its expertise to create a robust practical tool for urban housing professionals in Europe. The output of is a brochure which provides policy guidance designed to support cities and housing professionals in providing social and affordable housing.

The lack of suitable mechanisms for knowledge exchange in housing policy can hinder the development of effective policies at city level. Despite affordable housing being a key issue across many EU cities, with a range of good practices available, the Partnership has demonstrated that there is further potential for cities to learn from each other. The Partnership developed this action to address this gap by creating an exchange programme for urban housing practitioners, which can then be scaled up to exchanges between different stakeholders, including city employees and EU institutions.

The implementation of an integrated affordable housing monitoring system could contribute to informed policy development and economic recovery, while benefiting EU citizens through better living conditions. This action aims to secure regular and structural observation of housing data at national and subnational level in the EU, specifically regarding investment in affordable housing and social development.

In order to facilitate learning from international experiences and to improve information exchange on national policy options for affordable housing it is important to have a stable framework at member-state level. The Partnership has highlighted the value of systematic exchanges on affordable housing policy and the need to further develop and standardise these. This action will therefore revive existing formats of such exchanges (i.e. Housing Focal Points) to allow for structured and continuous exchanges at Member State level. Germany has indicated their willingness to organize these meeting during their presidency in 2020.

Spatial data mapping housing prices on the subnational level is lacking, as housing prices are available and monitored only at the member-state level. The scarcity of such data hampers the advancement housing-related knowledge, including funding and regulation at the EU level. Access to this data could help provide a closer insight into the particularities of the housing market in specific regions and cities. This action was therefore developed to establish a database on affordable housing at subnational level. This will contribute to more locally and regionally targeted evidence for future EU policy development.

Energy poverty is a widespread problem across Europe, which has a critical impact on quality of life, and research suggests that the female population is at a higher risk of energy poverty. Lower incomes mean fewer options for investing in low carbon options such as energy efficiency and renewable energy. Therefore, there is a need to develop gender-aware energy policies in housing. This action aims to advocate for advancing knowledge on the gender-energy-poverty nexus by making gender-disaggregated data available to inform policy development.

The lack of investment in affordable housing stands at around €57 billion per year. Taking this into consideration, the Partnership deemed it important to improve cities and affordable housing providers' ability to access funding, the overall aim being to increase the supply of affordable housing in Europe. This action therefore focuses on capacity building at the local level to ensure better ability to access to EU level funding instruments, specifically from the European Investment Bank and EU Cohesion policy. It also highlights the knowledge gap in this regard and recommends research to explore the constraints on such capacity building.

While the EU does not have an official mandate in housing policy, the European Semester Country Specific Recommendations have addressed issues related to housing since 2011, which influence national housing policies. The European Semester is an EU-level framework for coordinating and assessing Member States’ structural reforms and fiscal/budgetary policy. In an attempt to improve the European Semester procedure to ensure it reflects housing need and supports better financing, the Partnership has developed this action to analyse the impact of EU budgetary rules on local, regional and national investment capacities regarding affordable housing.

The Housing Partnership developed recommendations on ‘good housing policy’, which address this on local, regional and national levels, as well suggesting improvements to EU policies, which impact housing. This set of recommendations focuses on eight priority areas and provides recommendations for policy development with respect to protection of vulnerable groups, anti-speculation, renovation and energy efficiency, co-management and co-design, spatial planning, rent stabilisation and control, land use and building grounds, security of tenancy. The recommendations can be found in the Action Plan.

Integration of migrant children, including unaccompanied minors, is of critical importance for future social cohesion in the EU. Growing numbers of cases have exposed shortcomings in the current system. The overall objective of this action is to protect and reinforce the rights of unaccompanied minors. This will be reached by drafting policy recommendations on what can be done at European level to better protect and integrate unaccompanied minors in European cities. The recommendations will be based on best practices from case studies across 15 cities (looking at guardianship, access to education, health services and housing, among others).

The scope of integration-related data available to cities across Europe differs widely, and there is a new demand for such data on urban-regional level, including integration indicators that are comparable across countries. A wealth of experience in evidence-based urban integration policies exist in European cities, but there is little oversight of where best practices are to be found. In response to this, the action proposes the creation of a Europe-wide knowledge base on migrant integration on urban/regional level according to cities’ needs, and a European toolbox for evidence-based local integration policies.

In general, cities do not have direct or sufficient access to integration funding. This action aims to address this by analysing the regulatory and practical barriers to EU funding as related to integration-challenges in cities (specifically to AMIF, ESF, EASI and ERDF funding) and to develop solutions to overcome these. The goal of this action is to provide guaranteed city access to EU integration funding within and across Member States.

The integration of migrants and refugees poses a variety of challenges to local authorities which often lack the necessary expertise. This expertise is available in Europe, but it needs to be shared in a systematic way. Doing so will contribute to the capacity of local authorities to develop successful integration policies. To serve this purpose, this action has the aim of establishing an Urban Academy on Integration. Two editions have been carried out so far.

Refugees and migrants coming to Europe are faced with common challenges that come about with integration, such as discrimination in the labour and housing markets. One of the barriers to addressing this is that experts with migrant, minority or refugee backgrounds are severely underrepresented in decision-making institutions. This action was therefore developed to create the European Migrant Advisory Board, composed of nine experts from different fields, all with migrant or refugee backgrounds. The board is consulted by the Partnership and its members, and through them migrants and refugees are represented and involved.

Migrants and refugees often encounter problems accessing loans for a variety of reasons such as a lack of familiarity with administrative and legal requirements to start a business in the host country. Microcredits can play an important role in giving migrant entrepreneurs access to finance. Through this action, the Partnership wants to tackle these issues through the blending of EU grants with loans, making funding more directly available for migrant and refugee inclusion. The main long-term goal of this action is the creation of blending facilities which deliver grant and loan financing, and are complementary to other funding channels.

Young people with a migrant background require particular attention in integration policies, as seen by evidence of school segregation in at least half of the EU Member States. Involvement of children with migrant background in education should improve their educational success and future labour market integration. It is therefore necessary to support the desegregation of educational facilities. This action will contribute to this by providing guidance on educational desegregation in the scope of the local urban development policies, addressing local and national challenges, as well as a pilot action in two cities to test desegregation policies.

One way to further integration of migrants and refugees in Europe is to support their business endeavours and lower the barriers they face when starting and managing a business in their host locality. Barriers often include difficulties securing funding, linked to a lack of credit history or secure legal status. If costs related to business development services were covered, this may incentivize lenders to target vulnerable groups while keeping the overall pricing affordable. One possible measure, developed by this action, could be to support the role of microfinance for vulnerable groups, through options such as blending of different funds.

A mismatched skillset is one of the biggest issues that cities face in terms of jobs and skills. This action aims to set up a new governance structure to support and enhance talent development and connect it with stakeholders. It will be delivered through four initiatives - Firstly, a Talent Observatory will be designed to gather information on talent supply and demand. - Secondly, a Lifelong Career Guidance programme will be developed. - Thirdly, a new Skills Academy will focus on promoting skills oriented to present and future economic needs. - Finally, a digital platform will be set up to attract and retain talent.

In 2016, the European Commission adopted the New Skills Agenda for Europe aimed at making the right training and skills available in the EU. However, there is a need to include the local level and to create mechanisms to exchange ideas, projects and good practices. Therefore, the Partnership has developed an action to create an online repository of good practices. A permanent mechanism will be established to ensure that best practice, with particular emphasis on digital competences in vocational education and further education, is widely shared recorded and developed. A Digital Skills Map can be found online.

This action suggests that the European Pillar on Social Rights (EPSR) should be the framework for the reconversion towards a sustainable economy in urban areas. The EPSR sets out 20 key principles and rights to support fair and well-functioning labour markets and welfare systems. It is indispensable to involve the local level to succeed in this. Therefore, this action will result in the dissemination of a practical guide on how to deliver the EPSR at the local level in the framework of the European Semester.

The availability of a skilled workforce is becoming increasingly important to innovation and growth. The Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS3) is a valuable instrument for this, but the monitoring process is overly focused on RIS3 goals and not so much on underlying effects. RIS3 risks delivering concrete benefits only to a few regions with high innovation potential. Without cooperation between successful regions and those with limited experience there is a risk for increased regional divisions. In response, this action aims to include a Human Capital Agenda and the local dimension into the RIS3.

With major transitions in European society and economy, targeted investments in education and skills are needed. However, investment in research and innovation across the EU falls short of the 3% GDP target, and 40% of the workforce lacks necessary digital skills. Many funding instruments exist but accessing different instruments can be tricky. This action has the goal of optimising long term investments for jobs and skills. This will be done by identifying ways to link EU investment frameworks to local and regional long-term investment strategies, and improving the use of technical assistance at national, regional and local level.

This action responds to the need for further improvements in the implementation and accessibility to Structural and Investment Funds, since current funding opportunities are not always easily accessible. Entitled Simplification 2.0, it aims to help make future European Structural and Investment Funds more accessible for cities, particularly for smaller municipalities that lack the capacity and resources to take part in European initiatives. The output of this Action will be a position paper targeted at the Council and the European Parliament, making proposals for future regulations regarding funding.

Strong public intervention in the regeneration of deprived areas is essential to achieve the Europe 2020 goal of no net land-take by 2050. Through the lens of jobs and skills, revitalization of deprived areas can also be a tool to promote jobs and skills in local economies. Therefore, this action will promote economic and social goals in the regeneration of deprived territories and frame revitalisation as an economic and social issue. It aims to create new financing facilities within the post-2020 programming period for the regeneration of deprived areas with social and economic regeneration, as a resource for job creation.

This action calls for a more place based approach, implying more flexibility to Integrated Territorial Investments (these allow EU Member States to bundle funding from one or more Operational Programmes to ensure the implementation of an integrated strategy for a specific territory). This would allow local authorities to grant funding according to their strategies, reaching the target indicators and the results of the respective specific funding objectives. It will result in policy recommendations to be fed into the European Institutions.

The creation of better jobs based on better skills in the local economy will require interventions such as grants, subsidies, or the promotion of education and innovation. Any activity linked to the promotion of local economy can be subject of State Aid regulation, so it is necessary to continuously revise and improve this. This action defines two improvements to State Aid regulation, which could give cities a more flexibility in the support of start-ups, and the regeneration of deprived areas. The suggestions are to change the de-minimis for investments in innovative start-ups and to have more flexible rules for regeneration projects.

Cities are engines of regional economies, and highly influence the circumstances in which jobs are created. In order to improve job creation in cities, strategic documents in the field of cities’ sustainable development should be updated in order to emphasize the need to ensure more favourable conditions for businesses. Through this action, the Partnership will produce a proposal comprising a set of provisions aiming to promote a job-oriented ecosystem in cities, to be included in the Lepzig Charter.

Public Procurement can be an important strategic tool to solve different economic, environmental and social challenges, and a significant amount of public procurement in Europe is carried out by municipalities. Building a Procurement Strategy and managing procurement is needed to ensure that these practices are aligned with a city’s broader goals. This action aims to produce a guidance toolkit (including visual materials) that can help politicians and technicians in cities (especially mid-sized and small cities) to build their own Procurement strategy that supports the city’s overall strategy and helps it tackle sustainability challenges.

When designing procurement strategies, cities need to understand where procurement spending takes place, both geographically and by sector. By doing societies can assess whether or not the strategy has yielded the desired outcomes of growth, innovation and circularity. At present, it is not always clear which European data standards cities can use when collecting and processing procurement information. This action aims to develop a common methodology for cities to measure their spending, as well as the economic, social and environmental impacts of it. This will help ensure more effective procurement strategies in cities.

Procedures for circular/green procurement can be difficult to understand, which is one of the reasons why it is not yet widely implemented. Existing best practice is not sufficiently promoted, and there is a lack of available training and education. The Partnership has therefore developed this action to address this knowledge gap, which involved the organisation of training sessions which have already been carried out in several cities. Ultimately, the goal is that public buyers in local and regional authorities across the EU be equipped with the knowledge needed to implement circular/green procurement.

Often, the process of public contracting does not allow suppliers enough time to provide innovative approaches and products. This action aims to improve this by promoting early interaction between public and private players, which has shown to increase providers ability to be innovative. It aims to do so by promoting innovation procurement brokerage, which can greatly speed up innovation. The main deliverable of this action is a set of guidelines for the definition, implementation and management of “Innovation Procurement Broker”.

One of the challenges faced by European cities in achieving innovative public procurement is a lack of practical legal knowledge. Practitioners with more knowledge are better equipped to assess the risks related to innovative procurement. This action will develop a legal handbook as a tool for practitioners to gain such knowledge. It will contain a set of guidelines regarding legal aspects for the procurement of innovation, the goal being to provide enough knowledge on procurement law to reduce uncertainty. This will in turn contribute to the reduction of the risk aversion felt by those responsible for the procurement of innovation.

Local Competence Centres are valuable providing training and skills development, networking, technical assistance, and potentially joint purchases by local public procurement officers. By sharing knowledge and by working together, local buyers can be encouraged to engage in innovative and sustainable public procurement and can have access to very practical knowledge on how best to achieve this. This action will develop a toolkit with a flexible concept – adaptable to the local situation – for Local Competence Centres for innovative and sustainable procurement.

Learning is key to innovative and responsible public procurement, and specific efforts are required in new policy areas where competences remain under developed, such as circular procurement. The goal of this action is to share and help develop experience knowledge and insights on circular procurement and illustrate how it can be a valuable tool for cities. Through this action, the Partnership will make knowledge on circular procurement easily available by providing conferences, workshops and training material that cities can use to build and develop competence for relevant staff, thus promoting procurement as a strategic tool for circularity.

The Action will involve: 1) a thorough mapping of indices and benchmarking and self-assessment tools already used within the fields of security, safety, technical advances and liveability. 2) It will then aim to define a conceptual framework to support the creation of a self-assessment tool. 3) Develop a set of peer-learning activities for city representatives

Through this Action, the Partnership will promote the integration of local and regional authorities into the governance of security-related issues at national and European level, by means of official letters and position papers to European and national authorities on political priorities (such as the Leipzig Charter, the Security Union Strategy) and funding issues (such as guidelines to include security in integrated urban strategies financed by ERDF and develop local action plans).

This Action will evaluate safe and smart citiy approaches across Europe, identify bottlenecks faced by local authorities when implementing AI technology, and an overview of the legal framework and policy contexts for it’s application. The result will be a set of recommendations to support cities’ innovation in the field of security, with input from approaches adopted in 3rd countries.

Through this Action, the Partnership will contribute in the definition of an EU-level capacity-building framework on integrated security activities, including skills and competences for different actors dealing with urban security and cooperating on the same area.

This Action aims to 1) create a common methodology to measure the impact of existing local social cohesion actions on (the feelings of) insecurity, in order to identify strengths and weaknesses, and 2) provide a new method that local security managers can implement to find new solutions for complex social or insecurity issues on which the existing projects don’t seem to have an impact.

With the goal of mainstreaming the concept of ‘security by design’ in local and regional planning, this Action will promote the implementation of a ‘security by design’-based approach to enhance security in public spaces as an innovative practice in which local and regional authorities often have little experience/expertise. It will involve the collection and centralisation of documentation regarding the protection of public spaces and the development of promotional material outlining ’rules of thumb’ for urban planners and designers.

Despite high levels of commitment from local and regional authorities to sustainable land use planning, decisions frequently produce negative long-term impacts. A mechanism for considering the impact of different urban planning alternatives on land take is required in order to adopt approaches which minimize negative impacts. This action therefore aims to promote the degree to which land take is considered in development decision making procedures, in the hope that land take can be reduced through prioritising development in locations which result in a lower impact.

Brownfield redevelopment in cities presents a valuable opportunity to prevent land take and urban sprawl and can be a competitive alternative to greenfield development. The main problem that this action addresses is the lack of comprehensive and up-to-date information for cities regarding how best to use EU-level funding and financing, and how to leverage private investment for brownfield redevelopment. It will entail the compilation of funding and finance options to stimulate brownfield development where funding or finance is a barrier, which will reduce the cost barrier to brownfield development.

The development or use of under-used sites presents opportunities for new development (residential, industrial, office, public/shared space, green and blue infrastructure) or for temporary or long-term re-use. The aim of this action is to stimulate the development of under-used spaces through the mobilisation of stakeholders, NGO’s and the private sector. The amount and transparency of information available in the public domain regarding under-used sites in urban areas requires improvement. The final outcome of the action will include a Guideline Document for regions and cities on identifying and managing under-used land.

Land use by urban infrastructure has one of the highest impacts on the environment due to sealing of soil and disturbances that lead to the degradation of the natural landscape. One of the barriers to reducing this is the lack of clear measurements. This action aims to define a set of common indicators of net land take that can be used in order to assess the environmental impact of different forms of land use. Under this action, a public workshop/conference brought together relevant stakeholders. The outcomes will feed into and help to define the final indicator outputs of the action.

Careful spatial planning and effective regulatory tools are essential to mitigate the problem of urban sprawl, which is further complicated when this spans administrative boundaries. To tackle the negative impacts of urban sprawl more effectively, a holistic approach to spatial planning is needed. The aim of this action is to make Functional Urban Area (FUA) collaboration, especially coordinated spatial planning, a widely recognised and attractive tool for better land management. The Partnership will produce a publication with suggestions and guidelines on how to effectively use this as a way to reduce the negative effects of urban sprawl.

Although the concept of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) has been included in the funding priorities of the European Commission, and is beginning to be included in regional and city-level strategies, this new concept remains somewhat vague. Based on the review of EU instruments and legislation available, the partnership believes that there is a need to integrate NBS in existing directives. The objective of this action is - to develop recommendations for the EU Commission on the integration of NBS within existing Directives and other EU-level documents and - to gather a better overview of local regulations for NBS and to improve them.

Nature Based Solutions (NBS) are not yet systematically embedded and implemented in EU cities and urban areas in part due to lack of adequate financing. However, this funding is widely available via EU sources (ESIF, Horizon 2020, EIB, LIFE, EEA & Norway Grants Fund and others). A key barrier to proper use of this funding is lack of knowledge of existing financing opportunities or how to access them. Increasing the awareness on existing NBS funding sources is proposed through this action, which involves the development of a funding guide for the implementation of NBS. It will include information on funding options from public and private sources.

The use of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) is a relatively new concept, so it knowledge on it is relatively limited. Raising awareness is a challenge for all EU Member States as often the timescale and efforts necessary for sustainable innovation are underestimated by citizens and local authorities. In order to gain support for the use of nature based approaches, there is the need to communicate land use challenges in urban and peri-urban areas. This action aims to raise awareness around the benefits of NBS but also awareness around the benefits of reducing urban sprawl, through compact yet liveable city development and reduced land take.

Common and adaptable targets and performance indicators for Nature Based Solutions are severely lacking in Europe, and a system that allows common benchmarking and inspiration between cities, easily understandable by citizens, politicians, administration, business and developers is desirable. This action will, through collaboration with already working initiatives/projects on targets and indicators for Nature Based Solutions, contribute to establishing a relevant, easily adaptable and implementable set of targets and indicators for cities.

Developing and implementing comprehensive and integrated urban mobility policies for towns and cities, which cover the functional urban area and hinterland connections, requires close cooperation between different levels of government and across administrative boundaries. This action will help support cooperation between the various actors by providing better knowledge to urban planners, policy-makers and stakeholders. The partnership is working to collect and share examples of cooperation on issues related to urban mobility.

In many urban areas, transport planning is still primarily focused on infrastructure rather than fostering new approaches to urban mobility. It is important to link political vision, strategic planning, and the needs and expectations of citizens and businesses. This action aims to present the state-of-play of sustainable urban mobility planning across the EU, as well as guidelines that will make it easier for cities to implement recent developments. It also entails an overview and analysis of national frameworks, a city database for urban mobility and transport plans, and a set of good-practice examples.