The case study on San Sebastian (Spain) is one of the concrete results of the URBACT workstream ‘New urban economies’, after collection of data,a study visit, and interviews with local stakeholders.
To achieve the “well below 2 degrees” targets, a new ecosystem needs to be defined where citizens become more active, co-managing with relevant stakeholders, the government, and third parties. This means moving from the traditional concept of citizens-as-consumers towards energy citizenship. Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) will be the test-bed area where this transformation will take place through social, technological, and governance innovation. This paper focuses on benefits and barriers towards energy citizenships and gathers a diverse set of experiences for the definition of PEDs and Local Energy Markets from the Horizon2020 Smart Cities and Communities projects: Making City, Pocityf, and Atelier.
Whilst until the late 1980s most migration issues developed in a parallel manner but with national specifics, important differences showed up during the 1990s and at the beginning of this decade. Since the middle of the 1990s, there has been an obvious change in policy towards migrants and foreigners in the Netherlands, and those changes have been more or less “exported” to our neighbouring countries and even to the level of the EU. Integration into society with the maintenance of the immigrant’s own culture has been replaced by integration into the Dutch society after passing an integration examination. The focus of this article is to investigate those changes and to compare the implementation of those policies in the Netherlands/Limburg and Germany/NRW, where the official understanding of not being an immigration country was dominant until the end of the 1990s, and where integration has only recently become an important political issue. Both countries are now facing similar challenges for better integration into the society, especially into the educational system. Firstly, the autors describe migration definitions, types, the numbers of migrants and the backgrounds of migrant policies in Germany and the Netherlands up until the middle of the 1990s. Secondly they discuss the integration policies thereafter: the pathway to a new policy and the Action Plan Integration in Germany, and the central ideas of the Civic Integration of Newcomers Act (WIN) in the Netherlands. Integration policy in the Netherlands is highly centralised with little differentiation on the local governmental level when compared to South Limburg. Thirdly, the autors investigate the cross-border cooperation between professional organisations and educational institutions in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine, and the involvement of social work institutions and social workers in their process of integration into the local society and the exchange of each others’ experiences (the ECSW and RECES projects).
GAMEHEARTS will seek to maximise the value of the European videogame industry ecosystems (hereafter, EVGIE) within a wider social context of the creative and cultural industries (hereafter, CCI). This will consider the importance of the EVGIE in contributing to economic growth, job creation, physical and mental wellbeing, and social and cultural cohesion, by particularly focusing on, how a stronger and closer working relationship between more the traditional and emergent cultural sectors, can work better to create more inclusive and socially responsible cultural experiences. The consortium will offer policy recommendations and roadmaps setting out how the EVGIE can and should develop, and where it could act as a driver for sustained innovation and economic growth. It will utilise an evidence-based approach that focuses not just on videogame development, but rather adopts a holistic ecosystem approach, utilising both established and more innovative methodologies, to consider the competitiveness and development of the EVGIE, and how videogame know-how and technologies could drive innovation in the wider CCI. In doing so, GAMEHEARTS will develop ‘ludic experiences’, to explore possibilities of more inclusive, engaging, and empowering cultural experiences. Working across seven work packages the universities of Salford (UK), Tampere (Finland), Vienna (Austria), Breda University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), and Wroclaw University of Economics and Business (Poland) will work in parentship with Ubisoft (France) and other major videogame partners and associations (including the ISFE & EGDF) to explore current and future trends in the EVGIE.
JEWELS TOUR is a 4-year project funded by Interreg Europe and dealing with the valorisation of Jewish Cultural Heritage (JCH) in some European cities (Ferrara in Italy, Coimbra in Portugal, Erfurt in Germany, Lublin in Poland, Riga in Latvia, Ośrodek in Poland). Jewish cultural heritage is an integral part of the shared cultural heritage in Europe, and initiatives such as this project bring local stakeholders from different parts of Europe together to investigate the common responsibility of protecting tangible and intangible Jewish heritage. Across Europe, municipalities and local organizations recognize a need to make Jewish heritage accessible, and to do so in a sustainable way, that is in a way that benefit locals as well as visitors, with attention to economic as well as cultural and social benefits. The project aims is to devise policy instruments to promote Jewish cultural heritage, hereby including also digital ones, when possible. Technology is seen as an instrument to collect and share stories with equity, hereby also exploiting the emerging Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage that is promoted at European level.Societal IssueCultural heritage has been increasingly recognised as a strategic asset for an inclusive and sustainable development across Europe, due to its capacity to promote diversity and intercultural dialogue, while contributing to a stronger sense of belonging and mutual respect. The JEWELS TOUR project addresses the challenge of Jewish Cultural Heritage (JCH) discontinuity, reflecting both in a low level of investments and connection between heritage resources and local/regional productive sectors, as well as in the attractiveness regarding the promotion of JC assets as drivers for sustainable tourism and regional development.Benefit to societyIn recent years, Cultural Heritage has been increasingly recognised as a strategic resource for a sustainable and peaceful Europe, due to its capacity to promote diversity and intercultural dialogue, while contributing to a stronger sense of belonging and mutual respect . At EU level, cultural investments are considered as key drivers of territorial development and social cohesion, and as essential elements leading to the promotion of social innovation. JEWELS TOUR contributes to sustainable tourism and social innovation by revaluing Europe’s JCH, reinforcing the sense of belonging and cultural diversity in Europe.Collaborating partnersFerrara Municipality Italy, Breda University of Applied Sciences Advisory Partner Netherlands, Ośrodek "Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN" Partner Poland, Coimbra Municipality Partner Portugal, City of Erfurt Partner Germany, Riga Investment and Tourism Agency Partner Latvia, Lublin Municipality Partner Poland.
Social enterprises (SEs) can play an important role in addressing societal problems. SEs are businesses whose primary objective is to generate social impact (e.g. well-being, social wealth and cohesion, and ecology) through a market-based model. SEs achieve this through a hybrid business model, trading-off financial and social value creation objectives. SEs typically face higher costs, for example because of ethical sourcing principles and/or production processes centering around the needs of workers who are vulnerable or hard-to-employ. This results in SEs’ struggling to scale-up due to their relatively costly operating model. Traditional management techniques are not always appropriate, as they do not take into account the tensions between financial and social value creation objectives of SEs. Our project examines how continuous improvement, and in particular the philosophy and tools of Lean can be harnessed to improve SEs competitiveness. Lean organizations share many values with SEs, such as respect for people, suggesting a good fit between the values and principles of Lean and those of SEs. The consortium for this project is a cooperation between the research groups Improving Business and New Marketing of the Center of Expertise Well-Being Economy and New Entrepreneurship and the minor Continuous Improvement of AVANS Hogeschool, and the SME companies Elliz in Company and Ons Label. The project consists of two phases, an exploratory phase during which the question “in what ways can the philosophy and tools of Lean be used by Social Enterprises?” will be addressed. Interviews and focus groups will be conducted with multiple SEs (not only partners). Participant observation will be conducted by the students of the minor Continuous Improvement at the partner SEs. During the second phase, the implementation of the identified principles and tools will be operationalized through a roadmap. Action research will be conducted in cooperation with the partner SEs.
