Social innovation is also a ‘process’ worth researching
On the 8 July, we were at the out centered French Business School ESSEC talking about Social innovation and civic engagement. More precisely, the aim of the Mid-Term Conference of the FP7-funded project ITSSOIN , which we attended, was to present intermediary results on the way it was seeking to investigating the impact of the […]
Home after an intense City festival… Full of new energy!
The first ever URBACT City Festival in Riga is over! These have been three « professionally, emotionally and physically intense » days as one of the participants reported during the final session, called reflexively «Urban Futures »… The first element that stroke me when arriving was the layout and the colours of the whole festival: big purple balloons, […]
Killing the powerpoint and the keynote!
What will you bring home from the URBACT City Festival in Riga? was the question asked by the moderator Sally Kneeshaw at the final panel of participants representing various levels of local, national and EU governance. Typical question where you expect non less typical answers such as “I was so inspired by…” or “I could […]
Civil servants collaborating with citizens
Back from the 4th Informed Cities Forum in Rotterdam “…we are ‘free range civil servants’…” says Anne de Feijter from the city of Amersfoort. “…I consider myself a ‘street soldier’…” adds Niels Hoogwerf from the city of Rotterdam. What both mean with these statements is that they do their job outside, on the ground, in […]
Last Workstream Exchange 28/10/2014
The last working meeting of our took place in Brussels, on 28 October 214. It was the occasion to discuss and exchange on the findings of our study and to deepen the analysis that would serve as the basis for our final thematic report. More than anything else, we sought to put ourselves in cities’ […]
Sharing the first results of the capitalisation process in a fun and relaxed atmosphere !
We presented the first results of our case study in Amersfoort at the Sharing Event organised by the URBACT Secretariat, on the evening of the 8 October 2014 !The event took place in the former wine cellar, now host to an organic market, to start ups, social economy experimentation and various types of events (including […]
We successfully carried out our chat sessions in September and October!
Around 30 experts and urban practitioners have met in September and October in order to exchange on experience they have faced or observed for the promotion of social innovation in cities. Through five online chat sessions, we have shared on levers and hurdles, internal and external obstacles, as well as solutions observed, on the basis […]
Chat sessions in September
Throughout the month of September we shall carry out 2-hour chat sessions under each of our topics of investigations: How does city administration embrace social innovation? We shall be investigating the way cities play a new broker role, engage with residents, organisations and other stakeholders, develop networks, in order to co-create and co-produce.We will also […]
First Workstream Exchange 03/07/2014
On 3 July 2014, by a sunny Thursday, we hosted our first meeting. “Workstream Exchange” is the name we gave to our meetings where experts and urban practitioners meet and transfer knowledge to each other – and to us – in order to feed into our study. In particular, on that day, […]