Think bold and bring results #UIAstories
2016, UIA first call for proposals: 80 million euros to support 17 EU cities’ innovative experiments to address four urban challenges – Energy transition, integration of Migrants and Refugees, jobs and skills, urban poverty - tackled in bold new ways.
2020, the cities of Antwerp , Barcelona , Bilbao , Birmingham , Gothenburg, Lille, Madrid , Nantes, Paris , Rotterdam , Turin, Utrecht, Vienna and Viladecans closed successfully their activities with the implementation of their complex solutions. Today, a certain number of achievements and results can be highlighted, demonstrating the positive realisation of pioneering practices and the full potential of addressing urban challenges with innovation.
Notable figures and tangible achievements
Tackling the complex urban challenge of urban poverty, the cities of Barcelona , Birmingham and Turin completed their activities and proved to be effective in their ambition to explore new ways to increase the effectiveness of their social services. Barcelona B-MINCOME has successfully consolidated the testing of a municipal income support benefit (SMI) and a linked programme of complementary socio-occupational activation policies, involving 1000 beneficiaries in the scheme; developing a digital local currency and creating 147 new jobs. During the same period, Birmingham USE-IT! tested the new Community Researchers (CRs) Programme, involving a total of 80 researchers; developed a Job skills matching programme in the NHS, with 250 residents connected with vacancies in care sectors; and supported the development of Social Enterprises (SE), engaging with 120 Social businesses and taking 32 new social services and products to market. In Turin, the main achievements of Co-City can certainly be identified in the success linked to the pact of collaborations: 1200 associations, informal groups, private citizens and 31 schools were involved, resulting in 46 pacts of collaboration. Another 17 pacts of collaboration have also been presented outside the CO-CITY project and approved during the implementation period.
The cities of Antwerp , Utrecht and Vienna effectively implemented their set of tools to address several dimensions of migrants and refugees’ integration process. CURANT project in Antwerp allowed a total of 77 buddies and 81 unaccompanied young adult refugees to live together in 63 co-housing units, including coaching sessions, interactive training sessions for buddies and tailor made social services for refugees. The Utrecht U-RLP project engaged with 582 asylum seekers, organised 17 international entrepreneurship trainings and involved 191 asylum seekers and neighbourhood residents in dedicated programmes. In Vienna, the CORE centre was used by 86 organizations that implemented 117 different types of integration activities, 1009 participants were trained in refugee volunteer support workshops and 9514 refugees participated to 1070 information modules. Another achievement is that 46 refugees with teaching experiences attended the teaching training modules out of which 45 successfully passed the exam. At the project end date, 8 attendees were already working as teachers and 18 are engaged in after-school programmes and teaching support measures.
Developing jobs and skills in the local economy was the main challenge innovatively addressed by the cities of Rotterdam , Madrid and Bilbao . Rotterdam BRIDGE project contributed to the transformation of the deprived area of Rotterdam South by closing the mismatch between the education system and the new emerging sectors of the local labour market. They signed a Learning Agreement with 12 partners regarding the commitment of involved parties to work on transitions from school to work, transitions between jobs, and on the transitions back to work; and developed Career Start Guarantees that saw 1135 students being vocationally trained to integrate into promising sectors related to the Green, Blue and White economy. MARES in Madrid achieved a reduction of unemployment with new productive initiatives and forms of cooperation, the creation of quality jobs linked to new enterprise initiatives in the social economy sector, the diversification of quality jobs and appropriation of unused spaces, and finally, the design of new innovative local economy processes in the framework of sectoral clusters. Among the main Bilbao - AS-fabrik’s achievements, more than 450 industrial professionals have participated in specialized education courses during the project lifetime, 171.000 employees have been contacted for engagement, and 35 partnership and educational agreements have been created to identify collaboration project. In total, 120 specialized jobs were created in the area and 11 fully equipped spaces (2300 m2) fully refurbished to host the “factory for the creation of advanced services for the industry”.
The cities of Gothenburg, Paris and Viladecans worked during 3 years on the topic of energy transition in their urban areas, by implementing smart energy strategies and low-consumption incentive mechanisms. In Gothenburg, the project delivered and operated the FED system and market place, and achieved an energy system supplemented with additional solar photovoltaics, heat pumps and energy storages; a local energy market relying on a fully automated ICT-solution where AI-agents trade energy on behalf of the different market actors; a testbed for third-party actors; and a replication strategy. Paris Cordees project managed to lay the necessary basis and groundwork in educating and changing the behaviour of people on energy monitoring and energy consumption; to develop a platform used as an aggregator of energy-related data and to engage energy-related stakeholders in various forms, including through the implementation and monitoring of B2C and B2B [TC1] energy services. In Viladecans , an Energy Savings Contracting (ESC) Model was defined, a local energy was set up, with 72 businesses registered in the Vilawatt energy currency, 404 citizens adhered to the energy currency, and 484 households contracting the energy service with the Vilawatt Public-Private-Citizen Governance Partnership.
Positive results for a concrete impact at local level
As the long list of achievements shows, UIA cities were very active and successfully implemented their innovative interventions. The initial results of each project also demonstrate that it impacted positively their areas and started bringing expected changes. In general, all completed projects demonstrate their capacity in improving the lives of their beneficiaries with a clear increase of their well-being and optimism. As examples, in Barcelona , well-being of participants has been increased by 14% and their satisfaction with life by 27%; in Utrecht, 85% of the project participants agreed that it contributed to having more optimism in the future; and in Antwerp , 84% of the refugees indicated that they experienced a reduction of perceived stress.
UIA projects also resulted in:
- Reduction of unemployment and securing or creating jobs, such as in Madrid with 441 unemployed people starting production processes; in Birmingham with 105 new and existing social economy start-ups that have secured employment or generated their own income; in Barcelona with the creation of 147 jobs supported by medium-term contracts; or in Vienna with 42 asylum seekers gained first working experience in the education sector
- Evolution of citizen behaviour, thinking and commitment, in Turin where 61% of citizens involved consider the public authority as a partner and enabler; in Utrecht where the neighbourhood became less hostile to the asylum seeker centre – only 6% of the neighbourhood inhabitants experienced the presence of the asylum seeker centre as negative or very negative; in Paris where the apartments’ owners commitment and mobilization in monitoring energy performance was strong (1100 apartments and houses); and in Viladecans where 483 associates (citizens or business) adhered to the citizen or Business Associations towards the energy transition model of the Vilawatt.
- Major developments of skills and competences, as in Rotterdam with 29 389 pupils and parents reached by the skills development programme; in Vienna with 262 asylum seekers reported that they have increased their skills and knowledge on business and entrepreneurship due to the project; in Bilbao with 98% of the trained professionals apply new technical competences in Advanced Services & industry 4.0. in their companies
- Environmental improvements, with the FED system in Gothenburg established 100% fossil-free and higher amount than targeted of renewable power generated by their investments; with a renewable energy consumption ratio for heating at 64% at the end of year 3 in Paris .
- Increase of innovation, as reflected in Birmingham through the development of 25 new innovative products and services by social enterprises and community enterprises supported by the project; and in Madrid, with innovative local economy processes and 32 new productive initiatives developed and implemented in the framework of sectoral clusters. If quantitative results are easier to isolate, it remains extremely challenging, but essential, for UIA cities to fully grasp the added-value that innovative approaches brought to their way of designing and implementing alternative and bold policy interventions.
The above-mentioned results are just the tip of the iceberg: the completed UIA projects brought more changes for the cities and inhabitants. Moreover, for the majority of them, the results have kept on progressing after the end of the UIA funding and are expected to keep on growing in the years to come. All UIA projects are now fully committed to upscale and sustain in the medium and long term their innovative solutions. Only by securing stability and sustainability, they will be able to see additional and systemic results in their local contexts. In order to fully understand the changes generated and to further improve the new approaches tested in the near future, it will be essential to continue monitoring and evaluating interventions, achievements and results.
The UIA Permanent Secretariat will continue monitoring and aggregating results achieved at local level by funded projects to consolidate a strong basis of evidence on the Initiative’s contribution to innovative, integrated and effective urban policies.
Stay tuned on UIA website for more #UIAstories to come and check out the UIA knowledge lab to find out more about the topics, projects and experts’ analysis:
- Integration of migrants and refugees
