Report on the first CapaCITIES webinar

CapaCITIES webinar took place on the 20th of March focusing on the question:How to strengthen national governance for achieving the Cities Mission? Austria, France, Greece and Hungary presented their good practice cases and experience such as:

• National programmes in line with the Mission Smart Cities are in place in order to transform cities to smart ones through development of technology and infrastructure using the European Recovering and Resilience Fund.
• The principle of climate neutrality and digital transformation is incorporated into the local RIS3 strategy 2021 – 2027 programming period.
• Some countries have implemented deep bottom up tender to define content and topics to include in their instruments taking into account the needs of cities.
• Transdisciplinary cooperation across relevant directorates helps the cause.
• Countries seem to share the struggle to raise interest among stakeholders on lower levels. To address this struggle, support provided through informat working groups might work better than format top to bottom platforms.
• Establishing trust and openness is a key step towards capacity building.
• Continuity through political changes, European top to bottom structure or other large scale system instability must be established.

The next CapaCITIES webinar will take place in June.