📋 Tender Overview
At the Urban Development Network Program URBACT at the Paris City Festival June 14-16 2022 the new URBACT IV program the European Territorial Cooperation Program for cities of all sizes was officially launched. In May 2022 it was approved by the URBACT IV program commission and submitted to the European Commission for official approval.The main objective of the URBACT program will continue to be to support cities in planning and implementing integrated strategies for sustainable urban development based on the URBACT method based on the involvement of local stakeholders and exchanges between European cities. The central part of the program will again be urban networks supported by capacity building development and knowledge exchange. The first tender for URBACT IV networks is scheduled for October 2022. Information on tenders will be available on the URBACT Slovenia website you can subscribe to news or follow the URBACT program on social networks. URBACT IV will focus on urban cooperation to better implement sustainable urban development strategiesThe key objective of URBACT IV is to improve the institutional capacity of public authorities in order to achieve the objectives of sustainable urban development and thus strengthen the effectiveness of EU cohesion policy. URBACT has an officially recognized role in achieving the EUs fifth cohesion policy goal Bringing Europe closer to its citizens by promoting the sustainable and integrated development of all types of territories. URBACT IV is also recognized as an important tool for realizing the vision of the New Leipzig Charter for Sustainable Urban Development - supporting cities to become fairer greener and more productive. In practice this means that URBACT IV will continue to support cities of all sizes - from neighborhoods to functional urban areas - in improving their approaches to sustainable urban development based on the URBACT method. Key aspects thus include the involvement of local stakeholdersGreater emphasis on URBACT city networksThematic networks of cities are an important part of the URBACT program. A typical URBACT network consists of eight to ten cities from all over Europe who with the support of URBACT experts come together around a topic of common interest for two and a half years of working together. Each city sets up its own URBACT local group to address their local challenges while sharing experiences and learning with peers from the network. Using an even larger share of the programmes budget than hitherto URBACT IV will support three types of urban networks - candidate networks will be selected on the basis of specific calls. These will focus on improving the capacity of European cities toco-creation and implementation of integrated action plans action networkstransfer of established good urban practices transmission networks development of investment plans for replication of innovations created by urban innovation measures innovation part of the European Urban Initiative EUI innovation transfer mechanism.Capacity building and knowledge sharing will be crucialURBACT IV will continue its efforts to improve the capacity of participating cities to use the URBACT method in designing and implementing sustainable urban development strategies. It accomplishes this through physical and online capacity building events such as URBACT e-University and through a range of freely available online tools and guidelines.URBACT will continue to develop and share thematic urban knowledge emerging in its cities and networks through the URBACT Knowledge Hub. The creation and revitalization of online thematic communities will also allow cities to exchange views on topics that go beyond the themes of individual URBACT networks providing a more integrated approach to addressing key urban challenges. The latest analyzes of urban policy and practice stemming from the work of URBACT will be actively included in the European Urban Initiative EUI and the Urban Agenda for the EU with a view to linking voices and urban analysis to national and European urban policy-making.Greater focus on digital green and gender issuesURBACT will maintain the principle that cities will be able to choose network topics according to their needs and priorities. Nevertheless it will also be explicitly aimed at raising the awareness and capacity of all actors in the program in order to better integrate cross-sectoral aspects such as digital and environmental aspects and gender equality into their work and activities. Cross-cutting themes and principles such as this will be part of the evaluation criteria for network selection. Training on gender equality the digital transition and climate action will be mandatory for all networks. Exchanges and learning on such cross-cutting themes will also be possible outside the exchanges that take place within individual networks - in particular through the thematic communities mentioned above. This will help to better understand how to integrate aspects such as digital green and gender mainstreaming policies into integrated approaches to sustainable urban development. Emerging knowledge will be directly integrated into the relevant pages of the URBACT Knowledge Center - Gender Equal Cities TechPlace.online and Climate Action and directly into wider policy discussions outside URBACT.Extended program area including countries in the process of joining the EUThe URBACT IV program will continue to involve all 27 EU Member States and Norway and Switzerland as partner countries with co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund ERDF to support their participation in URBACT networks. City authorities will once again benefit from the National URBACT Point NUP which will provide information and support in the national language and support dialogue between local regional and national authorities.
