Addressing today’s increasingly complex challenges, cities are testing and adopting new, transversal and collaborative governance practices building on citizen engagement and co-creation as well as working together across administrative borders. The growing importance of urban governance in achieving EU policy objectives is also acknowledged by the urban dimension of cohesion policy and the urban agenda for the EU. Under this horizontal theme we coordinate the work of our working groups cohesion policy, creative citizenship, integrated urban development, metropolitan areas and the EU urban agenda.

The main objectives:

• To stregthen our community of urban develompent experts and spatial planners whose work cuts across several sectors, including mobility, environment, social inclusion and governance.

• To promote the place-based, integrated approach across EU and national policies

• To promote metropolitan cooperation for more resilient and inclusive urban areas

• To capitalise on experience in innovative governance mechanisms on citizen engagement and co-creation and its impact on public policies

• To coordinate a comprehensive and evidence-based contribution to our network’s position on post-2020 cohesion policy

•  We work closely with the main EU institutions and advisory bodies, including the European Parliament's urban intergroup.

• We work closely with policy research organisations (OECD, ESPON, RSA)

• We sit on the Urban Development Group (UDG) which unites national ministries in charge of urban affairs and we have established close links on urban matters with member states holding EU presidencies.

• We maintain close links with other networks representing regional and local authorities, and together we push for a strengthening of multilevel governance when developing and implementing EU policies.