VARCITIES 3rd Progress Meeting
VARCITIES’ 3rd Progress Meeting took place online, on 23-24 February. Over these 2 days we’ve reflected on our achievements during the first 18 months of the project and discussed the challenges and next steps towards implementing Nature-Based Solutions for increasing the health and well-being of citizens.
Despite not being able to meet in person, it was an exciting and important gathering. This consortium meeting was organized over 2 days, the program being divided into presentations from each Work Package and presentations from the Pilot Cities.
Day-1
Day-1 was focused on the progress of the project at a Work Package level. The presentation series was started by the coordination team, Telecommunication System Institute, who updated the partners about the overall management of the project. For WP3, our colleagues from EURAC Research and E2RAC presented the first results as the tasks in this Work Package are finishing at the end of this month. Prospex Institute presented the co-creation Strategy finalized by WP4, while in WP5 updates about the design and development of the Health & Well-being Platform were showcased. Continuing the work done in WP3, colleagues in WP6 (E2RAC) discussed the visionary solutions implementation, while WP7 (University of Malta) focused on KPI development, monitoring, and evaluation. Lastly, INLECOM (WP8) presented their work related to exploitation, business models, and commercialization, while colleagues from Crowdhelix (WP9) discussed the communication and dissemination strategy and activities.
Day-2
The second day gave the stage to the 7 pilot cities from VARCITIES. Colleagues from Malta, Chania, Dundalk, Gzira, Skelleftea, Leuven and Castelfranco Veneto each presented key aspects of the work done so far within their cities. They offered an overview of the planned Visionary Solutions, summarising stakeholders’ inputs and explaining how they were and will keep being engaged in the co-creation process. Future plans were also discussed for each of the visionary solutions, including the implementation process, components, and costs, as well as KPIs that will be measured.
In the afternoon, Adriano Bisello (EURAC Research) together with Marta Rossi, a special guest from the Human Foundation, also organised a workshop on estimating the Social Return On Investment (SROI) of the Visionary Solutions.
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For any question or information regarding VARCITIES, please contact us at contact@varcities.eu
