Urbact III Programme

For over 15 years, the URBACT programme has been the European Territorial Cooperation programme aiming to foster sustainable integrated urban development in cities across Europe. It is an instrument of the Cohesion Policy, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, the 28 Member States, Norway & Switzerland. Urbact is part of Interreg Strand C, which includes 3 other interregional cooperation instruments that reinforce the effectiveness of EU cohesion policy (Interreg Europe, Interact and ESPON programmes). URBACT’s mission is to enable cities to work together and develop integrated solutions to common urban challenges, by networking, learning from one another’s experiences, drawing lessons and identifying good practices to improve urban policies. Following the success of the URBACT I (2002-2006) and URBACT II (2007-2013) programmes, URBACT III (2014-2020) was developed to continue to promote sustainable integrated urban development and contribute to the delivery of the Europe 2020 strategy. URBACT uses resources and know-how to strengthen the capacity of cities to deliver integrated urban strategy and actions on the thematic according to their challenges. The main target participants include practitioners, city managers, elected representatives and stakeholders from other public agencies, the private sector and civil society. The document ”URBACT III Operational Programme” adopted by the European Commission in 2014 stresses the fact that cities need to act in a comprehensive way, coordinating different policies that relate to the main services that their inhabitants need: water, energy, housing, transport, culture, health, green and urban spaces, etc. To tackle all urban challenges, the city needs a holistic approach bringing together economic opportunity, multimodal mobility, energy efficiency and renewability, quality of the natural and built environment and promotion of the cultural heritage, development of strong public services and amenities in a sustainable an inclusive way.