Paris URBACT Training - Springboard & Investment Plans
Edited on
04 April 2022All of our meetings for USE-IT so far have been online – which made the Paris URBACT Training being held in-person, very exciting. Most of us probably took these events for granted in the past, but the pandemic (and having everything online) has really shown the importance and how special it is to meet in-person - and indeed it was.
There's no substitute for visiting a city and discussing everything when you're in the same room as everyone.
The Paris event proved a fantastic opportunity to discuss a wider range of subjects, including Springboard and Investment Plans.
Each of our 3 partner cities has been working hard to produce a draft Investment Plan and in Birmingham we have been developing a draft Springboard Plan. Birmingham’s plans are looking very inspiring and promise a real opportunity to rethink the way we work.
This Springboard Plan has been developed through a series of support activities over a 2-month period (January 2022 to February 2022) led by our Ad-Hoc Expert for the USE-IT! Transfer Mechanism, Conrad Parke, supported by our Lead Expert, Matthew Baqueriza-Jackson and in partnership with Birmingham’s URBACT Local Group (ULG). It has been a really positive experience to have this peer-reviewed by the other Lead Partner cities. All of us have been sharing feedback and ideas to take forward.
It’s a similar situation with the Investment Plans. Each of the partner cities has produced a draft version, which will be finalised before the end of the project later this year. The ideas set out in these plans are very exciting – and it’s great to see that the partner cities are looking to use these as a basis to gain funding for projects.
Poznan's Investment Plan was reviewed in Paris, which really gave us food for thought for their plan and also those of all the partner cities.
All said and done - Paris offered a real opportunity to share ideas and move everything forward. There will be lots more to say on this in the coming days and weeks ahead - well keep you updated.
Submitted by James Carless on