TRANSFORMING CITIES, ENHANCING WELLBEING: INNOVATING WITH NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
ADDRESSING SOCIETAL CHALLENGES THROUGH NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
The “Horizon 2020 European Dialogue and Clustering Action Transforming cities, enhancing wellbeing: innovating with nature-based solutions”, to be held in the City of A Coruña (Spain), next May 16-18, 2018. This is a joint initiative of two European projects Connecting Nature and the support platform Think Nature and is co-organized by the University of A Coruna(Spain). Consult here the CONCEPT NOTE of the event.
This symposium will take place since 16th of May and the venue will be the main building of the Barrie Foundation in St. Cantón Grande, 9, A Coruña.
AGENDA
Download the PROGRAMME in pdf version
The event will focus on 3 main themes:
- Sustainable Urbanization in Cities and Restoration of Degraded Ecosystems. Critically reviewing the lessons from the practical implementation of nature-based solutions in cities and distilling what is best practice in achieving more liveable and resilient cities through nature-based solutions.
- Robust assessment of NBS impacts: creating the evidence base to inform urban policy-making. How the latest developments monitoring, evaluating and data gathering can contribute to the evidence on the comparative advantage of these interventions stronger.
- Enhancing innovation potential through new governance and funding models for NBS. Focusing more on the management side of nature-based solutions, and the role these new approaches may play in upscaling the multiple benefits of this type of interventions.
The event will adopt the highly dynamic and interactive format of a pressure cooker, with guiding questions and specific outcomes prepared for each day aimed at learning and exchange among participants.
The complete agenda of the event can be consulted in the following links:
CITIES SUMMITS
Cities Summits are 90-minute sessions in which a combination of cities and city-planners, researchers and entreprise representants with long experience in nature-based solutions present their innovative experience in implementing and measuring the impact of green infraestructures and discuss how to create robust an innovative forms for NBS assessment. The content of each cities-summit session can be consulted here:
RELEVANT SPEAKERS
Josefina Enfendaque, DG RDT European Commission; Marcus Collier, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), coordinator of the Connecting Nature project; Andreas Litkopf, European Environment Agency; Kristyna Pelikanova, European Investment Bank, Nick Pearce, director of the Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath; David Maddox, The Nature of Cities; Jennifer Senick, Rutgers Center for Green Building, New York; Kate Reilly, IUCN; Julie Barnett, University of Bath, and Clare Twigger-Ross, Collingwood Environmental Planning, Dr. Adina Dumitru and Professor Ricardo García Mira, among others. Consult in this link the Relevant keynotes and speakers who are presenting their experience in the event.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
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Information about Nature- Based Excursions can be found here.
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Information on travel to and accommodation in A Coruna can be accessed here
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A Google Map with all of the main venues, airports accommodation can be downloaded here
PARTICIPANTS
The event will bring together key actors (e.g. business representatives and market actors, scientists and experts, policy makers and end users such as municipalities, local and regional authorities) from across the EU and from overseas, including relevant representatives from the European Commission and other international institutions dealing with the funding, monitoring evaluation of nature-based solutions.
Several European-wide research projects, CONNECTING NATURE, THINK NATURE, Urban GreenUP, GROWGREEN, UNALAB, PHUSICOS, ISOCARP and NAIAD, will showcase their demonstration actions of large-scale design, implementation evaluation of NBS. Among the participants, we have representatives of the United Nations Environment Program, the European Environment Agency, EU-Brazil – Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication, the European Dredging Association – EuDA, the European Platform of Construction Technology (ECTP), the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, WWF.
Likewise, the ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability network and a selection of European cities, pioneers in the implementation of solutions based on nature, will present their experiences and challenges in the design and financing of ecological infrastructures. Among these are Glasgow, London, Genk, Poznan, Nicosia, Bologna, Ioannina, A Coruña, Malaga, Tampere, Karlova Ves-Bratislava, Regensburg, Stavanger, Tbilisi, Sarajevo-Bosnia & Herzegovina, Prague, Paris region, Vitoria-Gasteiz or Santiago de Compostela (Download the complete description of the sessions here).
Early career researchers. As part of the event, we are hosting a short session which is first and foremost aimed at bringing together those early career researchers who are studying nature-based solutions. Nature-based solutions in cities have the potential to employ many people and have even more potential to become new enterprises or grow existing ones. So, as we gather in A Coruña, and as we listen to the cities and SME’s from many projects and regions of Europe discuss the potential for nature-based solutions, let us also see where early career professionals can fit into this arena and how it can benefit you from an academic or a practitioner point of view. The Earlier Career Workshop is being coordinated by Marcus Collier. More info HERE.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
- The main conclusions from the Horizon 2020European Dialogue and Clustering Action Transforming cities, enhancing wellbeing: innovating with NBS will be elaborated to take the form of a “Roadmap for Research and Action on establishing a reference framework for NBS in addressing social challenges”.
- This will be made publicly available and will mark a milestone in the streamlining of efforts from both cities, policymakers, academics for accelerating transitions to more vibrant cities and sustainable cities in Europe and beyond.
- Also, and based on the main discussions regarding the NBS impact evaluation, a white paper will be produced offering an overview of the current developments in the NBS field, identifying new tools and opportunities for monitoring of NBS and showing the added value of it, all illustrated with examples and aimed at informing the EU urban planning & sustainability policies.
REGISTRATION
The event is now fully subscribed. A waiting list is in operation. To add your name to the waiting please register using this link
Technical Secretariat
Isabel Lema Blanco (Researcher – People-Environment Research Group)
Email: isabel.lema@udc.es
Phone:+34 881 011 882
NBE Expo and Pitch Battle
Isobel Fletcher (Senior Project Manager – Horizon Nua)
Email: isobel.fletcher@horizonnua.eu
Phone: +353 1 493 5942