Re-Valuing Urban Quality & Climate Neutrality in European Waterfront Cities

Project Information

Re-Value

Grant agreement ID: 101096943

DOI

10.3030/101096943

EC signature date 9 December 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 12 418 093,75

EU contribution

€ 11 999 799,75

Coordinated by

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Re-Value (Re-Valuing Urban Quality & Climate Neutrality in European Waterfront Cities)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Re-Value is working with 9 European waterfront cities (Ålesund, Bruges, Burgas,
Rimini, Cascais, Constanta, Izmir, Písek, and Rijeka) to make their urban transition irresistible for citizens and professional stakeholders. The project is inspired by the New European Bauhaus' aesthetic approach to sustainability, and undertaken to support the EU Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. Leading cities (Ålesund, Bruges, Burgas,
Rimini) and Replication Cities (Cascais, Constanta, Izmir, Písek, and Rijeka) are investing efforts to move beyond the state of the art on the following 6 systemic challenges in urban planning and design:
- Systemic changes in governance, regulatory structures, advocacy
- Cultural and spatial quality
- Financial and circular value chains
- Data-driven co-creation
- Energy and mobility
- Nature-based solutions
The specific needs of Re-Value cities include valuing urban quality in climate neutrality journeys, empowering and co-creating climate action with citizens and professional stakeholders, building localises capacity and competency, structuring city authorities to co-create climate neutrality, in-house, with stakeholders, learning from each other, honest sharing of practices and challenges localises and finally, replication/scaling that is adapted to unique context. Key target groups in the project are citizens, businesses, arts and culture, knowledge organisations, local authorities, investors, national authorities, EU Cities Mission and NEB communities, funding/finance stakeholders as well as wider public and media.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project has completed the first phase that included the start of Inception, Impact Model, Understanding and Sense-making and is reaching the end of the second phase that includes Co-creation and contextualization, Storybuilding, Detailed Roadmaps, Scenario-Building, Investment and Partnership Models.

The project set up collaboration and knowledge exchange structures through the Capacity Building and Exchange Programme of its Community of Practice. Each city has set up a Replication Team of experts on the systemic challenges, as the project did overall with cross-cutting teams.

Re-Value embed Innovation Cycles as a way of mutual learning and development. These include specific cycles on Story-building, on Scenario-building and data-driven co-creation, and on Investment and Partnership building.

Several rounds of Innovation Camps were organised with local schools in each Re-Value city, to specifically target youth and parents to build awareness and skills to shape local planning and design and more broadly climate neutrality processes. Camps covered intensive idea-generating workshops with school children that address the systemic challenges of the Waterfront Pilots and the long-term plans towards climate neutrality.

An initial version of the Re-Value Impact Model is developed and keeps being refined. It includes new interaction modes, including an Impact Model Domino Game. It is complemented by the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Model to monitor and document the impacts of the project and capture the added value created for different stakeholders.

Both Leading and Replication Cities have prepared the first internal draft of their Detailed Roadmaps including a peer-to-peer reviewing process. Leading Cities are also preparing the pathways to make changes in their strategic long-term Territorial Transformation Plans to embed Re-Value results and accelerate their transition. Through the Community of Practice and identifying common design principles, the first draft of a Portfolio of Urban Planning and Design Approaches is being prepared. Moreover, the first steps in planning short-term artistic missions have been completed.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Re-Value has specific results planned: Impact Model addressing six systemic challenges; Innovation Cycles co-generating and co-qualifying Stories, Scenarios and Investment- and Partnership-building strategies; Inclusiveness Protocol; Re-Value Portfolio of Urban Design and Planning Approaches; Detailed Roadmaps for Waterfront Pilots & update of Long-term Territorial Transformation Plans; Full-Scale Deployment in Leading Cities’ Waterfront Pilots; Co-created Capacity Building and Exchange Programme; Peer-to-Peer Collaboration Space and capacity building support; Re-Value Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and Dialogues with NetZeroCities; Improvement of Societal Readiness Levels. These are not yet available or are in their initial versions through the respective Deliverables published. The ongoing experience in the project will refine them, collect relevant evidence, and make them accessible to other cities and stakeholders for replication.

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