The First Year of UrbCitizenPower: Kiel’s Perspective
Kiel looks positively on the first year of the Interreg project UrbCitizenPower (01.04.24 – 31.03.25). We have made progress in strengthening citizen participation and driving forward creative and innovative urban development. Activities such as stakeholder meetings, workshops, and an Urban Living Lab provided space for ideas and co-creation.
The regular exchanges with partner cities were essential for Kiel throughout the year and have fostered valuable connections. Starting with the kick-off meeting in Kiel, where all partners were able to get to know each other during a tour on the Kiel Fjord. The second time we met in the beginning of this year for the first Urban Living Lab in Braga, where we not only experienced the dynamic city and its commitment. We gained important insights for our citizen participation efforts and could contribute impulses on youth participation and mobility concepts. Overall, we gained initial insights into successful approaches to urban challenges.
On site in Kiel, through stakeholder meetings, we advanced our policy instrument by implementing creative participatory urban projects. The tiny townhall will soon be on the road again – as a mobile participation format, it creates spaces for dialogue and fosters exchange on creative urban design. Another key element of our strategy is the Pop-up Pavilion that brings creative thinking into the inner city. Both projects are firmly planned for this year and will be integrated into our policy instrument – serving as platforms for dialogue and as drivers of creative, innovative urban development.
Within the city administration, our work on the policy instrument has already taken on a new, important role, moving closer to leadership levels and thereby fulfils synergies with the fields of economy and science. As a result, strong and promising connections are emerging. Here, a new format is being developed at the interface between art, culture, science and economy, allowing the administration to take on an intermediary role: acting as a bridge-builder between stakeholders and as a platform for innovative solutions.
With these initial successes, we are looking forward to the coming project year with motivation, aiming to further strengthen the creative innovative power of Kiel with our local stakeholders and our international partners.