VARCITIES: Visionary Nature-Based Actions for Health, Well-Being & Resilience in Cities

​

The project puts the citizen and the ‘human community’ in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human-centred cities. The mission of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing health and wellbeing of citizens (children, young and middle aged people, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe, through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.

​

The project contains 8 European municipalities or regions, which serve as pilot sites: Bergen in Norway, Skellefteå in Sweden, Castelfranco Veneto in Italy, Dundalk in Ireland, Chania in Greece, Gzira in Malta, Novo Mesto in Slovenia and Leuven in Belgium. VARCITIES is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme and runs for 4,5 years, from September 2020 until February 2025. For more general info, please visit the project's official website.

 

Prospex Institute's Role

​

Prospex Institute leads the work on stakeholder engagement and develops an overarching co-creation strategy. We coordinate the pilot sites’ stakeholder mapping and support them in tailoring their engagement and implementation activities to the challenges, opportunities and needs of their local context.

​

That effort is needed for project partners to successfully co-design nature-based solutions and put them into practice. On a project level, PI also designs, organises and facilitates internal cross-learning workshops with all project partners. On a yearly basis, the ½ day interactive workshop serves as a platform for knowledge and experience gathering and exchange.