Cities stand at the crossroads of today’s most pressing territorial challenges. Climate emergencies, housing shortages, demographic shifts, digital disruption, and social inequality: these challenges are reshaping urban life at unprecedented speed. They demand responses under uncertainty, often with shrinking budgets and rising citizen expectations. In short, cities are increasingly being asked to shift from forecasting to foresight, so the demand for evidence-based policymaking has never been higher.
Given this situation, the ability to connect scientific knowledge with everyday policymaking has become not just desirable, but essential. Scientific research can offer critical insights into complex issues, helping policymakers understand long-term impacts, test innovative approaches, and evaluate outcomes. Usable, accessible, and accurate knowledge also represents a democratic challenge for public decision-making.
Cities are operating in a broader societal context marked by misinformation and declining trust in expertise. Translating knowledge into tangible improvements is crucial to restoring confidence in evidence and demonstrating its practical value.
The strengthening of science-policy collaboration at the city level closely aligns with evolving EU priorities. Initiatives linked to science-for-policy, the European Research Area, Horizon Europe, and the EU Urban Agenda all emphasise the need for stronger links between research institutions and public authorities.
This is why Eurocities and the Competence Centre for Anti-fragile territories (CRAFT) – Politecnico di Milano have joined forces to accelerate city‑science collaboration and support cities in turning scientific knowledge into everyday governance practice.
But how are European cities actually doing this work? To find out, Eurocities conducted one of the first comparative surveys on city-science collaboration across Europe, and the results paint a picture that is both encouraging and urgent.
A first European snapshot of the city-science interface
The survey gathered responses from 32 cities across 16 European countries, offering a rich and diverse sample. Major metropolitan areas like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, Helsinki, Milan, Paris and Vienna sit alongside medium-sized innovation-driven cities like Leuven, Reggio Emilia, San Sebastian and Tampere, as well as emerging participants from Central and Eastern Europe, including Nicosia, Poznan and Tallinn.
The picture that emerges is one of growing ambition, but also of significant unevenness.
40% of responding cities report that scientific knowledge is systematically integrated into their core policymaking processes, embedded in strategic planning, budgetary decisions and policy cycles. At the same time, 53% of the respondents say that this integration happens only occasionally, typically triggered by European-funded projects, specific funding calls, or acute crises. For these cities, science tends to be mobilised reactively rather than routinely. The question is no longer whether cities need science, virtually all agree they do. The question is how to make it structural, sustainable, and scalable.
Six models of collaboration in practice
One of the most valuable insights from the survey is the variety of organisational approaches that cities are experimenting with to bridge science and policymaking.
Amsterdam, with its Chief Science Officer and Research and Statistics Office, represents a group of cities that have been creating internal hubs directly within their city halls, where dedicated staff broker science-for-policy, set standards, and coordinate across departments.
Others have built joint city-university platforms: co-funded centres or urban labs where governance and staff are shared, enabling more equal co-production of knowledge. Bologna’s Fondazione Innovazione Urbana is one such example.
A third model centres on strategic long-term partnerships between cities and universities that align research priorities with city agendas. The Finnish cities of Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa have co-funded professorships with Aalto University and the University of Helsinki, creating a durable research pipeline tied to real urban needs.
Cities like Paris have developed embedded research programmes that bring researchers directly into public administrations. The city runs annual PhD calls across city departments, ensuring a steady flow of applied research embedded in municipal practice.
In some cases, formalised citywide collaborations have established standing committees and governance structures, while in other cases, where city-science collaboration is at an initial stage, the collaboration has started with networks and events that build relationships over time.
These models show that cities are acting as laboratories of institutional innovation, testing different ways of integrating science into governance that best fits in their specific context.
What makes the difference in structuring city-science collaboration
Beyond models, the survey identifies the conditions that most consistently support successful city-science collaboration.
Political leadership stands out as perhaps the single most decisive factor. In the 35% of cities where mayors or senior officials visibly champion evidence-based practice, science tends to permeate across departments rather than remaining confined to specialist units. Political sponsorship doesn’t just accelerate collaboration, it legitimises it, and ensures continuity beyond individual project cycles.
Strong local research ecosystems also matter enormously. Cities with established universities, data infrastructures and long planning traditions tend to report more systematic use of science. Where a world-class institution is nearby and engaged, science-policy interfaces tend to be richer and more durable.
More than one-third of the surveyed cities have already formalised their cooperation through dedicated structures such as City Science Offices, science advisory boards, and Chief Science Officer roles. These structures improve accountability, scalability and continuity, though they require sustained investment and political will to maintain.
Importantly, the most effective cities combine institutional stability with informal agility: formal structures that anchor the collaboration, alongside flexible networks that can adapt quickly to emerging needs. Based on this evidence, translating research into actionable policies requires more than occasional collaboration. It demands new institutional arrangements capable of connecting scientific knowledge with everyday policymaking.
Shared challenges and emerging needs
While the survey reflects a dynamic and engaged landscape, 16% of cities report no current plans to develop city-science collaboration at all. These figures reveal that city-science collaboration is far from a given.
The survey thus reveals what cities need most. As the main challenge lies in translating academic research into usable policy knowledge, cities report the need for practical operational tools and frameworks to guide the setup and management of city-science interfaces. Four needs stand out clearly:
- Science-policy intermediaries: people who can bridge the language, timelines, and incentive structures of academia and public administration
- Peer learning between cities: structured opportunities to compare approaches, benchmark progress and learn from frontrunners
- Accessible, usable knowledge formats that make research genuinely legible for decision-makers
- Stronger structural support at the European level, including recognition of cities in Horizon Europe frameworks and EU research architectures
From findings to action: building a European city-science community
The diversity of the survey sample – from cities with established science-policy offices to those just beginning their journey – is itself an asset. It creates a unique ecosystem for peer exchange, mutual support and collective learning.
Eurocities is now translating these findings into concrete action. The priority for 2026 is the creation of a City-Science Community of experts, bringing together cities for structured knowledge exchange, benchmarking, and joint experimentation.
At the centre of this strategy is the ambition to develop a City-Science Accelerator: a structured initiative designed to help cities move from pilot projects toward institutionalised, sustainable models of science-policy collaboration. This community will also be engaging and contributing to the broader network of the city-science initiative, connecting practitioners from city administrations with academics from universities.
A key pillar of this acceleration is a new strategic partnership between Eurocities and CRAFT, which is part of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) at Politecnico di Milano. CRAFT brings deep expertise in science-policy interfaces, urban experimentation and territorial innovation, making it a natural partner for Eurocities as it scales up the city-science agenda.
This collaboration takes a concrete and ambitious first step with the launch of the Honours Programme ‘City Science for Transformative Urban Futures’, an advanced training programme developed by CRAFT together with Eurocities and ANCI Lombardia. The programme offers a unique learning experience at the intersection of research, public policy and urban innovation.
From 16 March to July 2026, 20 selected Master’s students from Urban Planning and Architecture degrees will be involved in collaborative applied research with six Italian cities – Brescia, Palermo, Pavia, Perugia, Reggio Emilia and Unione della Romagna Faentia – analysing their science-policy relationship and designing strategies to scale-up the integration of science and research in local governance.
Students will work directly with Eurocities and frontrunner cities, gaining first-hand experience of real policy environments and international urban governance debates. The ambition is to scale-up what has been learnt from the Honours Programme, and to systematise it so more city administrations across Europe and beyond can benefit from it as part of the Eurocities Academy offering.
The preliminary analysis of the survey on city‑science collaboration will form the foundation of a dedicated report on the state of city‑science in Europe, to be developed by our institutions. This report will help local, national and EU policymakers better grasp both the needs and the untapped potential of cities in this field. It will also provide a springboard for stronger political engagement and more strategic advocacy in defence of science, particularly science‑based policymaking.
At the same time, the survey makes one message unmistakably clear: effective city‑science collaboration demands sustained investment, institutional innovation and long‑term partnerships. This is precisely why the growing alliance between Eurocities and CRAFT marks an important shift. It moves us from simply mapping the landscape to actively shaping it, by nurturing the next generation of urban science practitioners and strengthening the institutional ecosystems they will rely on.
In doing so, we are not only supporting cities; we are helping to reimagine how knowledge is produced, governed and put to work in democratic societies.
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This article was written by Valeria Fedeli, Scientific Director, Competence Centre for Anti-fragile territories (CRAFT) – Politecnico of Milan, and Andre Sobczak, Secretary General of Eurocities.
To scale the momentum described in the article, Eurocities is launching an ambitious partnership with the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with its Competence Centre for Anti-fragile territories (CRAFT). Through a new Memorandum of Understanding, we will develop research, training and policy innovation initiatives that deepen the city-science interface and equip cities with the analytical and collaborative tools they need for more resilient, evidence‑driven governance.
A cornerstone of this partnership is the new Honours Programme on City–Science Collaboration, an advanced learning pathway that connects emerging urban talent with the challenges, innovations and lived realities of Europe’s major cities. With this collaboration, Eurocities is expanding its city‑science agenda, moving from diagnosis to delivery, and from isolated success stories to a more systematic approach.
