Apply for URBACT Good Practice Call: Inviting Cities to Share Good Practices in the Field of Sustainable Integrated Urban Development

Deadline: 31 March 2017

URBACT has launched a Good Practice Call, not only a practice that is good, but a practice that has been proven to work well by ensuring desired results, and could be recommended as a model.

An URBACT Good Practice will follow the key principles of the programme around sustainable development as a main orientation for driving change in cities towards the sustainable urban living.

Practices should address issues which are widely faced by European cities and offer some clear and concrete solutions. There are no defined themes for an URBACT Good Practice. They can range from urban mobility to migrants from air quality to jobs and skills. These are only examples of urban challenges in Europe today.

URBACT Principles

All the good practices selected should respect the URBACT values as outlined below:

Sustainable urban living: Urban development can only be sustainable when it is accompanied by measures designed to reduce poverty, social exclusion and environmental problems. URBACT is committed to the values and principles of sustainable development6 as a main orientation for driving change in cities towards the sustainable urban living.
Integrated and participative approach: The integrated approach brings together social, economic and environmental actions to address policy challenges in a holistic manner. URBACT believes that integrated urban development promotes a genuine solution to complex urban problems.

Benefits

This call invites city to come forward with their good practices in the field of sustainable integrated urban development to:

Be part of the pioneering group of URBACT Good Practices to be widely promoted at EU and international level
Be able to share the Good Practice within the framework of a Transfer Network (Call to be published in September 2017)
All the cities with selected good practices will be awarded the title URBACT Good Practice City. The label will provide a city with the recognition and visibility it deserves for the results accomplished.

Furthermore, a specially conceived mix of communication and promotional activities will be put in place to promote the label, your city’s practice and the story that lies behind it. First of all, a Good Practice Festival will be organised in September 2017, where all the selected cities with good practices will take part and have the opportunity to network with European and city policy-makers. Other materials such as publications, presentations, videos and infographics will be produced and shared with urban practitioners from all over Europe, making sure that your story gets known.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible beneficiaries for the Call for Good Practices are “cities” and “other public authorities” from EU 28 Member States, Norway and Switzerland as defined below:
For the URBACT III programme, “cities” as eligible beneficiaries are defined as the public local authority representing:
- Cities, municipalities, towns;
- Infra-municipal tiers of government such as city districts and boroughs in cases where they are represented by a politico-administrative institution having competences for policymaking and implementation in the policy area covered by the URBACT network concerned in which they are willing to get involved;
- Metropolitan authorities and organized agglomerations in cases where they are represented by a politico-administrative institution having delegated competences for policy-making and implementation in the policy area covered by the URBACT network.
Other public authorities or Equivalent Public Bodies5 are also eligible in the present call as follows:
- Local agencies defined as public or semi-public organisations set up by a city, partially or fully owned by the city authority, responsible for the design and implementation of specific policies (economic development, energy supply, health services, transport, etc.).