New Results of URBACT Projects Now Available!

My Generation – Effective strategies in promoting the positive potential of the young generation

In Europe, policies that promote young people are too fragmented and short-lasting, and they also suffer from being unilaterally directed towards a single target when the diversity of the challenges calls for integrated measures. For more than two and a half years, the twelve partner cities in the URBACT project My Generation worked to identify effective local policies in three areas: giving disadvantaged young people more access to social services already in place in cities; creating bridges between training, education and the business world; and improving coordination among the various players and including young people in the decision-making process.

Although the partner cities in the My Generation project are facing different challenges, they all arrived at the conclusion that young people must become real co-creators of the solutions that are implemented. This lesson underlies all the other conclusions and implies changing usual ways of thinking. The project has also formulated recommendations for developing policies and activities that promote the positive potential of young people

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WEED - Women, Enterprise and Employment in Local Development

Gender equality is a key challenge in the strategy the European Union is implementing for economic growth and employment. The involvement of cities remains an approach that is rarely supported, even though it is a key factor of progress. The URBACT WEED project therefore focussed on identifying and developing integrated local actions that improve women's situation in employment, entrepreneurship and the knowledge economy. A considerable challenge for the partners was to juggle between their initial objectives and a context of economic crisis that was hardly favourable in order to make gender equality a local policy priority.

Through transnational sharing and analysis of examples of effective actions and Local Action Plans, the partner cities of the WEED project were able to develop new solutions to counter the obstacles that women face in employment, entrepreneurship and innovation.

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UNIC - Urban Network for Innovation in Ceramics

In Europe, the transition from heavy industry that had lost its competitive edge on the worldwide market to an economic model based on innovation penalises all the more the cities whose history and economic development have been intrinsically linked to a specific industry. The nine cities in the URBACT UNIC project share the common denominator of having a strong tradition in the ceramics industry and they shared their experiences and developed local policies adapted to this changing economic context in order to make ceramics an asset for their territory in terms of innovation, cultural dynamism and attractiveness.

From the initial study phase, the UNIC network used the URBACT Local Support Groups as a basis, bringing together key actors in the field in each partner city, and formulated a series of recommendations that the cities integrated into their respective Local Action Plans.

At the end of the UNIC project, the network published a work called "Beating the Crisis with UNIC", which presents the most relevant actions implemented by the nine partner cities under five themes that served as a framework for the development of their Local Action Plans.

Discover UNIC results and recommendations!

Visit our new page displaying the results of the URBACT projects. It will be regularly updated with the final publications and recommendations of the URBACT projects closing their exchange and learning activities.


Read more:

• URBACT Projects Results - URBACT website