EU-China Innovation Platform on Sustainable Urbanisation Kick-off Meeting Go back »
2017-03-24 | Beijing
The EU-China Innovation Platform on Sustainable Urbanisation (URBAN-EU-CHINA) will strengthen the cooperation between EU and China on sustainable urbanisation. The platform will engage a wide range of stakeholders in a common effort to create sustainable cities.
URBAN-EU-CHINA is financed by the European Commission’s framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon 2020. The start date of the project was 1 January 2017. The URBAN-EU-CHINA Kick-off Meeting was held in Putian, Fujian Province, China, on 19th March, back-to-back with the 2017 EU-China Forum on Sustainable Urban Development.
As a partner of the porject, representatives of the Chamber spoke at the meeting. The Chamber’s Working Group Coordinator, Mr Kevin Gao elaborated the responsibilities, major contributions and preliminary plan of the Chamber for this project. The Chamber’s States Representative and Vice Chair of Construction Working Group, Mr Massimo Bagnasco, further commented on the Working Package I and Working Package II of this project and emphasized that our Chamber along with the member companies would provide business perspective and industrial insights into this project through various tasks and activities.
Urbanisation is complex and cross-sectoral by nature. To promote sustainable urbanisation we need to engage policy-makers, national authorities, industry, cities, research institutions and civil society, says Annemie Wyckmans, URBAN-EU-CHINA project manager.
In URBAN-EU-CHINA, five Chinese and seven European partners, across the sustainable urbanisation value chain, have joined forces:
- China Center for Urban Development (CCUD)
- China Academy of Urban Planning and Design (CAUPD)
- Tongji University
- University of Nottingham Ningbo (UNNC)
- European Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC)
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Norway)
- Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems (ISINNOVA, Italy)
- Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER, Germany)
- Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG, Austria)
- Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT, Austria)
- EUROCITIES (Belgium)
- ADVANCITY (France)
URBAN-EU-CHINA will:
- Promote and develop Joint Policy Strategies, Funding and Cooperation Instruments for EU-China cooperation on sustainable urbanisation
- Create Joint Urban Demonstration Projects, in cooperation between industry, cities, research and other organisations
- Promote City-Industry-Science Partnerships using virtual and face-to-face meeting places
This will be accomplished through a coordinated series of actions, including: a strategic research and innovation agenda, scoping and assessment, networking events, workshops, peer-to-peer exchanges, bench-marking and monitoring, joint demonstration projects.
On 28th and 29th March, URBAN-EU-CHINA will organize a Launch Event and meetings with the European Commission in Brussels. Most URBAN-EU-CHINA partners will take part in these events. Chinese industry delegates from Beijing Capital Development Holding Company Ltd, Country Garden Holdings Company Ltd and Didi Chuxing will also participate. Later this year there will be more events in connection with the celebration of the 5-year anniversary of the EU-China Partnership on Sustainable Urbanisation.