The project I_Improve was a strategic partnership for adult education which ran between 2018 and 2021 and focused on innovative practices for training in the cultural sector. The overarching goal of the project was to raise cultural organisations capacity to engage with audiences and more effectively work for social inclusion through the arts and culture, especially in waterfront areas. The project worked towards this goal through the development of an informal educational approach which could address capacity gaps in the workplace of the contemporary European cultural sector through, as opposed to as a supplement to, the organisation’s daily tasks. The partnership consisted of 6 members from the River//Cities platform: Intercult, Sweden; the City of Oostende, Belgium; Wiener SPÖ Bildung, Austria; Venti di Cultura, Italy; River//Cities, Poland and Laimikis.LT, Lithuania.The arts and culture has had a valuable role in promoting intercultural dialogue, democratic engagement and social cohesion within Europe. However, to stay relevant to a changing European social context, pressing environmental issues and technological advancement, there was an expressed and perceived need for change and innovation in both the internal processes of cultural organisations, and the creative products being produced by cultural sector actors. I_Improve was born out of this need to explore, develop, disseminate and test new approaches within the context of a partly institutionalised and risk-averse cultural sector. Furthermore, it also addressed a need for diversifying access to training in the workplace of the cultural sector where financial and human resources are very often at a premium. I_Improve developed a pedagogical approach based on a specific way of working with external creative actors in each partner organisation. This approach foregrounded the acquirement of the transversal competences which have been identified by EU Joint Research Center research as vital for innovation. In I_Improve, each organisation implemented an innovative, local level project in response to their own environment, in collaboration with an external person/group, called a changemaker. These collaborators were chosen based on competences needed for the organisations to themselves internalise. Over the course of the working collaboration, and with the support of a dedicated informal educator, the participating staff utilised the techniques of informal education — observation, dialogue, reflection and experimentation — to gain skills, knowledge and new attitudes from their changemaker and grow as an organisation. This process, the organisation’s internal developmental journey, and the local projects, the innovative products and methods, were transformed into 3 intellectual outputs: the update of a digital platform on creative and participatory waterfront interventions (IO1); a digital learning environment (IO2), which exploited different online platforms to host and spread content; a methodology for exploring, structuring and catalysing innovations in cultural organisations based on the examination of the I_Improve local projects (IO3). Furthermore, through IO1 and IO2, and the E activities, the staff of the partner organisations became educators for change: their experience of creating innovative, socially engaged interventions, and the learning that came with this, became the point from around which the educational experiences of other organisations were built. The staff members of the participating partners reported that the pedagogical approach described above was a source of learning, ranging from inspiration to an involvement which significantly increased staff’s competence development. In addition to transversal competences, digital skills and knowledge grew exponentially for all partners through I_Improve due to a requirement to contribute to the digital platforms of IO1 and IO2. The majority of the local projects developed under the I_Improve umbrella are now in the process of being scaled up thanks to the support of local decision makers, achieved through multiplier events and stakeholder engagement. It has been unanimously reported by the participating organisations that I_Improve has changed their attitude, identity and/or processes. Overall, I_Improve partners discovered and disseminated that experimental, complex, high-risk projects drive informal learning, and ultimately, organisational change. This signifies the cultivation of an entrepreneurial attitude that is envisioned to have a long-term impact in how these cultural sector actors plan and implement actions in their environment. This and other learnings have been directed towards other actors in the sector and public authorities through multiple online platforms. Here we have shared the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind cultural interventions on European waterfronts as well as promoted new approaches to organisational learning within the cultural sector.

"""Creative Ageing"" is a strategic partnership project about developing innovative strategies through cultural education to reach senior citizens who have difficulties to find access to and participate in social and cultural life due to low skills, health or financial reasons, and to engage them in non-formal, participative and inclusive projects of cultural education. The project will run from September 2019 to November 2021 and involves the cultural departments of 6 city administrations from 5 different European countries: Munich (DE) as applicant and coordinator, Leeuwarden (NL), Ostend (BE), Brighton & Hove (UK), Gothenburg (SE) and Berlin (DE) as partners.Life expectancy is increasing and while many senior citizens enjoy their life after work, there is also a growing number of elderly people who are at risk of social exclusion. Increase in old-age poverty, less mobility due to age-related disabilities, life in isolation and no link to today’s digital world make those senior citizens more vulnerable and prevent them from access to social and cultural participation. This trend widens the disparities in society. “Creative Ageing” wants to respond to this societal challenge with the help of cultural education. While the positive impact of cultural education in the work with young people has been established, this knowledge needs now to be transferred to the target group of disadvantaged senior citizens. Participative cultural projects are to engage senior citizens actively and self-determined so that they become motivated to develop key competences such as relearning how to connect to other people. Cultural education includes lifelong-learning processes and can help to maintain and increase social networks, reduce loneliness and delay the onset of cognitive and health disorders.The partners want to learn from each other by sharing and reviewing good practices in their cities to develop new strategies on how to create sustainable structures and settings in European cities, which will allow for high-quality, customized offers to disadvantaged senior citizens and for overcoming the multiple access barriers. New practical ideas are to be brought back from the partners and be incorporated into the local strategies of how to reach the target group more effectively, how to work more inclusively with elderly people and how to involve them in social life. The project is meant to provide extra impetus and as a catalyst to push forward a new way of working in each city.To do that the partners will set up a cross-sectoral project team with staff from the municipal departments of culture, education, social services and health, but also from the local networks of cultural practitioners, NGOs, initiatives and carers – an innovative approach. Out of this community, 4 to 5 participants per partner (28 in total) will be selected to attend the 5 transnational meetings where the exchange and peer learning will take place. Each partner will organise and host one meeting with a focus on their expertise. These meetings after the kick-off will consist of on-site visits, presentations, discussions and evaluation. A survey among European cities will run in parallel and provide further insights. The final meeting will end in a public symposium in Munich and the results will presented in a best practice document. The participants will ensure that the gained knowledge is brought back to their cities and the local professional community is involved. In parallel, each partner will conduct local project activities. The project teams play a major role, as they will not only provide thematic input, but also influence the design of local strategies and inspire the local networks to develop participative cultural educational projects targeting senior citizens at risk of social exclusion.The project activities will result in a collection of good practices and their transferability to other European cities. The collaboration between the municipal levels and the local stakeholders will ensure that solutions are provided on a strategic (necessary funding and structure) and an operational level (customized participative projects). Cultural education will be increasingly recognized as a facilitator for social inclusion, also for target groups other than young people. All partners together will disseminate the project results and the collaboration with the network Eurocities with 152 major cities from around Europe will see to a wide coverage. Regarding the target group of senior citizens, the result of the project will be a visible increase in tailor-made cultural offers.In the long run, the partners remain connected via Eurocities where all partners are members. It will provide the platform to continue exchanging ideas on creative ageing and on developing joint projects. At local level, “Creative Ageing” will flow into the partners’ cultural educational projects for senior citizens, in particular those who are at risk of social exclusion."

The project will deliver urban food system transformation via Bauhaus Bites (BB) Food Environments, co-created and demonstrated in 7 cities at different levels of societal readiness, their transferability discussed with sister projects and European/global networks, and the results summarised in a Playbook for broad adoption. Bauhaus Bites Food Environments are urban and peri-urban ecosystems that commit to implementing sustainable healthy diets, amplified by the New European Bauhaus, and fortified with Nature-Based Solutions, ensuring that the transformed food environments of tomorrow are sustainable, inclusive and beautiful. By merging the key perspectives of European and global strategies such as the Farm to Fork and FOOD 2030 strategies, the Planetary Health Diet and the Planetary Health Diets with the New European Bauhaus values and principles, Bauhaus Bites offers a unique approach not yet seen in food system transformation projects, that will reimagine these food environments together with local, culturally diverse communities, customised to meet their needs, and anchored in social meeting spaces that carry meaning for them. The project will co-create BB Food environments in 3 Trailblazers (Birmingham, Fundão, Zagreb) and 4 Twins (Murska Sobota, Ostend, Palermo, Sarajevo) with different geographies, sizes, demographic challenges and societal readiness, boost mutual learning through a Community of Practice, document their added value with science-based indicators to inform high-level policy-making, test them for transferability with European/global networks, and summarise the learnings, guidelines, methods and examples in a Playbook. The BB approach will be based on inclusive participation and co-creation, including city and regional authorities, community- and business-driven initiatives, and inhabitants and end users of the food environments.

Different climate risks are considered in climate adaptation strategies at the local, regional, and national level, as well as in the EU Adaptation to Climate Change Mission. The interdependencies between risks are also increasingly considered. However, achievement of full climate resilience requires going much further: considering interdependencies across sectors, spatial scales, governance levels and knowledge domains. The systemic challenges behind the risks are to be addressed, creating synergies which increase public support and make adaptation more affordable. Recognising these systemic challenges also requires standardisation to optimise upscaling and replication. The ambition of SMARTER is to support a transformative change needed for systemic climate adaption by addressing these cross-sectoral interdependencies. To achieve this, we set up 10 Climate Adaptation Labs, spread over Europe, in which we develop and demonstrate a systemic approach, including supporting tools at the local and regional scale. The Labs host 5 demonstration pilots and 7 replication pilots, which have already identified different cross-sectoral domains that relate to their contextual climate adaptation challenges. Each of them contributes to a portfolio of solutions and guidelines for systemic climate adaptation. Solutions are built through participatory co-design and demonstration, combined with systemic foresighting. Key outcomes include an integrated toolbox for systemic climate adaption, a harmonised portfolio of demonstrated solutions and evaluation framework, replication strategies and road maps for climate adaptation with consideration for the financial and administrative aspects. SMARTER will directly impact regions and communities through the transformative solutions demonstrated, while they are empowered to realize the transformative change with the tools and approaches provided. This will increase their foresight capacity and accelerates achievement of climate resilience.

MAtchUP project aims at strengthening the planning processes for urban transformation, consolidating the benefits of deploying large scale demonstration projects of innovative technologies in the energy, mobility and ICT sectors, by means of substantially improved models for replication and upscaling, based on impacts evaluation, and ensuring the bankability of the solutions by means of innovative business models, which lead to achieve real deployment further than the pilots carried out in the lighthouse cities. With this, it is sought a high penetration of the validated technologies in those cities less prepared to adopt very innovative solutions and formalize it in a standard commitment, accompanied by capacity building strategies, to guarantee at least medium term implementation. The expected results will be achieved working in parallel in demonstration and upscaling/replication levels, so the lighthouse cities (Valencia-Spain, Dresden-Germany and Antalya-Turkey) and followers (Ostend-Belgium, Herzliya-Israel, Skopje-FYROM and Kerava-Finland) will assume a huge commitment in this project in order to: - deploy innovative solutions in the energy, mobility and ICT sectors with a strong monitoring program to validate all of them, - develop very rigorous upscaling and replication plans that will be the basis to update at least the SEAPs/SECAPs, that are the major standard commitment at European level that a city can assume in terms of city transformation, and other existing city plans as Sustainable Mobility Plans or Digital Agendas.