European cities taking part in an EU-backed “Peer Review” scheme will follow a five-step process that includes a multi-day in-person event and follow-up checks up to a year later.
Selected cities begin by setting the scope of their review, describing the challenges they want to address as three questions, with the location and dates set by the European Urban Initiative, according to details published by the European Urban Initiative and the European Commission on Tuesday.
Cities are then matched either as “cities under review” or as “peer reviewers”, with groupings based on relevant expertise and similar contexts.
Participants are asked to prepare the core discussion points and attend between two and three preparation meetings before the main event.
The Peer Review itself lasts two or three days and includes workshops, panel discussions, study visits and networking sessions.
Follow-up checks and next steps
After the event, cities under review receive a report setting out the main recommendations and how to integrate them, and may be invited to apply for a “City-to-City Exchange” — a further support activity — based on those recommendations, the European Urban Initiative said.
All participants are invited to an online progress follow-up six months after the event, with another follow-up organised one year after the event.
An “implementation roadmap” can also be offered to cities that want additional help to put at least one recommendation into practice.
The European Urban Initiative said Peer Reviews must focus on challenges linked to Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) strategies — plans for how cities design and deliver long-term improvements — with each city under review framing its chosen challenge as three guiding questions.
Topics should align with the “integrated approaches” to sustainable urban development set out under EU Cohesion Policy rules, as outlined in the European Regional Development Fund’s Common Provisions Regulation.
