Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EXPAND II (EXPAND II - Widening participation of countries and stakeholders in JPI Urban Europe through capacity building in urban policy, funding and research)
Reporting period: 2020-12-01 to 2022-03-31
EXPAND II intended to support the implementation of the JPI Urban Europe Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2.0 (SRIA 2.0) and to advance the R&I programme by (1) supporting JPI Urban Europe’s widening activities towards new countries, stakeholders and partners,(2) facilitating the transition from SRIA 2015 to SRIA 2.0 in terms of enhancing formats, instruments, strategic partnerships, and programme management, (3) improving availability and accessibility of research results for cities, funders, policy and decision makers. Through expanding and advancing the JPI Urban Europe programme, EXPAND II contributed to the preparations of its new programme, the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership.
Since transformations to sustainable and liveable urban futures depend on a broad commitment and co-creation among a diverse set of actors, the identified challenge to be tackled by EXPAND II was widening the community and building capacities in research, policy and society at large. In this sense, the project targeted Widening Countries in particular with the aim to establish national dialogues and processes, mobilise national R&I communities dealing with sustainable urban development, intensify strategic relationships of urban stakeholders on transnational level and assess national programmes and instruments for transnational R&I cooperation. The transition arena concept was used as the basic concept for widening participation and capacity building. As the center piece of the transition arena the JPI Urban Europe Stakeholder Involvement Platform (AGORA) was applied and advanced. Furthermore, the challenge was tackled by professionalising programme management in JPI Urban Europe in order to make research results more easily accessible for policy and decision makers. Data and cases were provided to easily follow the progress achieved in JPI Urban Europe and its projects and strengthen the programme as a hub for international cooperation. All these activities have been tuned to further expand the programme towards Widening Countries and other interested parties, offer information and platforms to engage for researchers, urban public administrations, policy makers, business as well as R&I funding agencies and prepare decisions about long-term commitments to the programme.
Since transformations to sustainable and liveable urban futures depend on a broad commitment and co-creation among a diverse set of actors, the identified challenge to be tackled by EXPAND II was widening the community and building capacities in research, policy and society at large. In this sense, the project targeted Widening Countries in particular with the aim to establish national dialogues and processes, mobilise national R&I communities dealing with sustainable urban development, intensify strategic relationships of urban stakeholders on transnational level and assess national programmes and instruments for transnational R&I cooperation. The transition arena concept was used as the basic concept for widening participation and capacity building. As the center piece of the transition arena the JPI Urban Europe Stakeholder Involvement Platform (AGORA) was applied and advanced. Furthermore, the challenge was tackled by professionalising programme management in JPI Urban Europe in order to make research results more easily accessible for policy and decision makers. Data and cases were provided to easily follow the progress achieved in JPI Urban Europe and its projects and strengthen the programme as a hub for international cooperation. All these activities have been tuned to further expand the programme towards Widening Countries and other interested parties, offer information and platforms to engage for researchers, urban public administrations, policy makers, business as well as R&I funding agencies and prepare decisions about long-term commitments to the programme.
Activities regarding Widening participation within the EXPAND II consortium have mainly centered around Ukraine, Bulgaria, the Azores, Latvia and Turkey. The concept of policy missions proved successful with Bulgaria joining EN-UTC and the DUT Partnership. Besides the dedicated missions all widening partners have been involved in the preparations of the DUT Partnership and stakeholders from all these countries have engaged in AGORA Dialogues and consultations that have been carried out as part of the DUT development process. In addition, the efforts to develop a European partnership on DUT offered opportunities for other European and international stakeholders to engage and contribute to priority setting as well. Five AGORA workshops and fourteen UERA events have been organized during the project. For all meetings, including the ones held online and the ones organized in non-Widening Countries, active participation of stakeholders from Widening Countries was aimed at and achieved. Also a mapping of framework conditions of national R&I programmes related to JPI Urban Europe instruments was performed leading to a comprehensive report on the framework conditions both in developed and Widening Countries. Within the project, the consortium contributed to the UAEU and investigated potential contributions to the European Urban Initiative, built extended relationships with other JPIs and European Partnerships and identified an action plan towards future cooperation. In addition, the consortium started investigating synergies between Horizon Europe Partnerships and Cohesion Funds. The Handbook for Call Implementation in JPI Urban Europe delivered during the second reporting period allowed to capitalise on the procedures and experiences from more than 10 calls. Informed by the mapping of relevant funding agencies in all EXPAND II partner countries and the mapping of framework conditions of national R&I programmes related to JPI Urban Europe instruments, recommendations for improving framework conditions for better alignment and future JPI Urban Europe calls have been made. Additionally, an advanced concept for Urban Living Labs was developed. The stakeholder platform implemented in 2021 gave better access to all channels for stakeholders involvement. The developed monitoring system examines activities in JPI Urban Europe in terms of their impact towards R&I objectives, societal and urban policy objectives as well as R&I policy and governance objectives. Foremost, the Monitoring Implementation Plan defines tasks, responsibilities and tools to support the implementation of the SRIA. The JPI Urban Europe Dashboard made information on key activities and performance indicators easily accessible, supporting the exchange of knowledge and information for JPI Urban Europe stakeholders and beyond. Regarding preparatory actions for the design of the monitoring framework for the DUT Partnership, within EXPAND II a basis for an impact-oriented intervention logic and monitoring approach for DUT have been established. The preparatory activities for DUT monitoring further contributed to the professionalization of programme management, taking into account learnings from the JPI Urban Europe network and its monitoring activities which led to an updated monitoring framework and implementation plan in the second reporting period. In addition, continuous efforts were undertaken to enhance both internal and external communication and showcasing good examples and project results. Improvements of the website to give project results and outcomes, but also policy papers, better visibility was part of that. The interactive maps that were conceptualised will, when they are implemented on the new website, offer a better overview of all activities in funded projects taking place in the same city and help connect local actors. Finally, the consortium built-up strategic intelligence towards further international outreach with particular focus on Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean during the second reporting period. These activities will be followed-up within the DUT partnership.
The EXPAND II team has implemented the actions according to the work plan. Main achievements are strengthened relationships with Widening countries, an extended stakeholder community, involvement of researchers and practitioners from participating Widening countries in UERA, AGORA and other joint actions. In addition, tools and methods have been advanced and programme management has been professionailsed, eg. by making a call handbook available for future joint calls, an advanced concept for Urban Living Labs to strengthen co-design and by implementing a dashboard on the JPI Urban Europe website to make information more accessible. All these measures and activities also supported and conributed to the long-term programme of JPI Urban Europe and the preparations of the Driving Urban Transitions partnership. Thus EXPAND II helped to extend the intergovernmental network of JPI Urban Europe and strengthen transnational cooperation and capacity buiding on sustainable urban development.