Forward Looking Survey - The European Urban Initiatives and its service offer
5. The European Urban Initiatives and its service offer
The last section of the survey focused on respondents’ knowledge and opinions concerning the European Urban Initiative and its service offer.
The survey started with a set of questions aimed at understanding respondents’ familiarity with EUI, and their participation in EUI activities.
The majority of respondents had a previous knowledge of EUI, half of them (50%) declaring that they were somewhat familiar with the initiative, and 16% very familiar with it.
It is interesting to note that among respondents representing towns, more than 50% were not familiar with EUI, while for the other categories of cities, this share is much lower, from 10% to 20%.
The group of 239 respondents who are familiar with EUI were asked to identify 3 main key words that they associate with EUI. The first key word, selected by 69% of respondents, was sustainable urban development, followed by innovation (36%) and funding opportunities (31%), both of which are probably associated with the Innovative Actions strand of EUI. These were followed by three key words selected by a similar percentage of respondents: the Urban Agenda for the EU (22%); knowledge sharing (22%); and good practices (20%). A slightly lower percentage (18%) selected capacity building and networking.
Only 92 – 25% – of all respondents had previously participated in at least one activity organised by EUI or its predecessor Urban Innovative Actions. Of those, almost one third were small city representatives (29 respondents). Quite high shares of medium (62%) and large (67%) cities reported having taken part in EUI and UIA activities, while for towns the percentage was very low (7%).
The next graph shows that 75% of respondents had not participated in EUI and UIA activities. This is an encouraging result, as it suggests that the survey has effectively reached out beyond the ‘usual suspects’ of EUI and UIA-funded activities. The survey managed to engage cities and organisations that often lack opportunities to share their perspectives and challenges. This is even more pronounced when looking at city size and involvement in EUI and UIA activities. Survey responses do not reflect the distribution of cities supported by EUI as of October 2024, suggesting that the survey successfully captured the views of cities that may not typically engage with such an EU-level initiative. This makes the survey a relevant tool for identifying and addressing the needs of these cities in the future.
In terms of specific activities, 22%[1] of all respondents reported that their town or city had taken part in Innovative Actions, either as an applicant or beneficiary in UIA calls, EUI calls and knowledge capitalisation activities. Another relevant percentage (10%) had participated in URBACT and EUI city labs (this percentage may also include URBACT and UIA capitalisation activities under the last programming period).
Capacity building activities
The survey also focused on capacity building. Capacity building refers to the process of enhancing the abilities of urban practitioners and policy-makers from EU cities to formulate and implement sustainable urban development strategies, policies and practices. It aims to improve the quality of these strategies, policies and practices in both their design and implementation. EUI provides three main types of capacity building activities: City-to-City Exchanges; Peer Reviews; and capacity building events.
As shown in the previous chart, overall 13%[2] of survey respondents had taken part in one of the EUI capacity building activities, with the highest participation in City-to-City Exchanges (5%).
Moreover, of the 239 respondents who are familiar with the EUI offer, 67% are planning to participate in an EUI capacity building activity in the near future (2024-2025). The biggest group (45%) is particularly interested in City-to-City Exchanges. This is the largest group across all city sizes, but with a percentage that increases as the size of the city decreases, rising from 41% in extra-large cities to 56% in towns.
Still, 32% of respondents who know about EUI reported that their city or organisation did not plan to participate in any EUI capacity building activity in the future.
The survey also tried to identify possible barriers to participation. The main barrier is the lack of time, as identified by 37% out of 73 respondents to this question[3]. This was followed by the claim that the funding provided for participating in the activities is not sufficient (26%), and a lack of knowledge of the EUI capacity building offer (26%). Only 7 respondents to this question (10%) said that the EUI offer does not correspond to their needs[4].
In the large majority of cases (78%), when identifying the barriers to participation respondents referred to EUI capacity building in general, without mentioning a specific activity.
Respondents were asked to rate different types of format for sustainable urban development capacity building according to their usefulness, from 5 to 0. The most useful format, according to half of respondents (51% rated it 5), is technical assistance from an expert, followed by peer learning involving study visits such as EUI City-to-City Exchanges (42% rated it 5), and in-person trainings or courses (41% rated it 5). It is worth noting that all the formats were rated as useful (3 or above) by the vast majority of respondents (more than 80%).
The survey allowed respondents to propose additional capacity building formats that they found useful but were not previously listed. However, many responses provided specific suggestions related to one of the predefined formats. The largest group in fact stressed again the importance of site visits and cities exchanges, including civil servant exchanges, job shadowing, and other types of exchanges, for example with practitioners. Another significant group highlighted the importance of webinars, seminars, workshops, and other types of events like industry regional conferences[5] or Urban Tech project showcases[6]. Several cited training and courses, including online learning platforms that offer courses with certifications, MOOCs[7], and interactive simulation platforms for training. Other capacity building formats they cited include the transfer of good practices and case studies, expert support and tailor-made assistance, as well as networks, partnerships, collaborations, and thematic discussions through forums and platforms.
Innovation
One of the core activities of EUI is to promote innovation in cities, through an activity called EUI Innovative Actions. The ambition of this instrument is to foster the deployment of proof-tested urban innovations across the EU and to provide opportunities for cities, as enablers of innovation, to take the risk to turn ambitious and creative ideas into pilot projects that can be tested in real urban settings. EUI Innovative Actions provides funding to co-finance up to 80% of selected projects’ budgets, and it also follows the implementation of actions, collecting and sharing results from projects’ experimentations.
The Innovative Actions scheme[8] has attracted several participants over the years, and, as seen before, has proven to be popular among respondents to this survey as well.
At the same time, not all cities across the EU have the capacity or opportunity to experiment with innovative projects. To better understand why, the survey asked respondents to identify the three main barriers that prevent cities from innovating.
The most recurrent barrier, selected by 41% of respondents, was the pressure of day-to-day work preventing resources from being dedicated to innovation, followed by a lack of co-financing capacity (36%), and resistance to change (29%). As a matter of fact, only 5% of respondents considered that there are no specific barriers to innovation in their cities.
An additional 5% of respondents highlighted additional barriers not included in the predefined list. The largest group pointed to obstacles related to a lack of ideas, imagination, and motivation among public officials, citizens, or other key stakeholders. Another group cited top-down limitations, such as constraints imposed by the economic system, political will, or higher-level government. Other barriers included insufficient financial resources, lack of technical knowledge or expertise, and practical challenges in applying for the calls, such as the size of the urban area.
Cities in more developed regions showed a different ranking of the barriers to innovation compared with cities in less developed and transition regions. In particular, lack of co-financing capacity was the first most selected barrier in less developed regions, and the second most selected in transition regions, while in more developed regions it was only the sixth most selected, showing that financial resources are not the main problem there. On the other hand, in more developed regions, respondents selected as the second most important barrier Insufficient support from political mandate/leadership.
There were variations in the top barriers preventing innovation, also according to the size of the city of respondents when they represented urban authorities. In particular, resistance to change is not one of the three most important barriers for urban authorities. They did indicate as top barriers pressure of day-to-day work (43%) and lack of co-financing capacity (41%), the latter being selected as the biggest barrier by representatives of towns (less than 50 000 inhabitants). In addition, urban authorities identified as a top barrier the limited administrative capacity to implement innovative solutions (30%).
Furthermore, medium, large and extra-large cities (more than 250 000 inhabitants) identified as a key barrier insufficient cross-departmental cooperation inside local administration that would be necessary for innovation, while towns saw as a barrier ‘insufficient knowledge of the state-of-the-art of urban innovation’.
Knowledge platform Portico
EUI has a strand of activities aimed at building and transferring knowledge on sustainable urban development in the EU. One of its main features is the development of an urban knowledge platform called Portico. The platform connects EU urban actors with the knowledge, people and initiatives they need to implement sustainable urban development, ultimately supporting better urban policy and strategy design, implementation and mainstreaming.
The survey asked whether the respondents were familiar with the platform, and 72% of them, meaning 264 out of 364, replied that they were not familiar with Portico. Only 4% were very familiar with the platform. It is understandable that the vast majority of respondents are not yet familiar with Portico, given that the platform has been available for less than a year.
In addition, respondents were asked to indicate which features they find most interesting on a platform that works like Portico. The most selected answer was access to EU funding and grant information, by 62% of respondents, followed by tools for collaboration and networking with other urban practitioners (47%), and interactive maps showing urban development projects and urban data in the EU (46%). A few respondents added suggestions on other possible features of a knowledge platform, stressing in particular the need to access information and solutions adaptable to local needs, in an interactive or customisable way.
[1] This value (more precisely 21.7%) is the sum of the percentages of the following activities all related to the Innovative Action strand: EUI – Innovative Actions applicant (6%); UIA Initiative applicant (5.8%); UIA Initiative beneficiary (project approved or funded) (4.4%); EUI -Innovative Actions beneficiary (project approved or funded) (4.1%); UIA knowledge capitalisation activity (1.4%).
[2] This value (more precisely 12.9%) is the sum of the percentages of the following activities all referring to the Capacity building strand: EUI – City-to-City exchange (5.2%); EUI – Capacity building event (4.4%); EUI – Peer review (3.3%).
[3] The question was open only to respondents who had never participated in an EUI capacity building activity, and who did not plan to do so in the future. For this reason, the number of respondents (73) was small in comparison to the overall number of respondents to the survey (364).
[4] The few respondents who included additional comments referred either to the fact that they were not eligible for the activities, or that their focus of work was in another area.
[5] Conferences which feature exhibitors and sponsors showcasing new products and services, and which also provide opportunities for actors of specific fields to gather in innovation ecosystems.
[6] See for example the EU-funded Urban Tech project showcases Greentech, Health Tech, and Smart City solutions: https://eismea.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-funded-urban-tech-project-showcases-greentech-health-tech-and-smart-city-solutions-its-final-2024-07-11_en
[7] A massive open online course (MOOC) is a free web-based distance learning programme designed for large numbers of geographically dispersed students.
[8] Considering both the current EUI Innovative Actions programme for 2021-2027, and Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) which was its predecessor during the programming period 2014-2020.
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