EUROCITIES has developed and piloted a methodology for ‘critical friend review’ between cities. This method is an effective way to nurture mutual learning between cities during study visits where visiting city experts act as ‘critical friends’ to provide constructive feedback to the host city with suggestions for areas to further improve the strategy, measures, projects or practices.
The handbook serves as a manual on how to organise a critical friend review to maximise the learning process and outcomes from a study visit to a city. It offers guidance to cities hosting a critical friend review, serves as a useful tool for the participants in the process and helps the hosts to take the most from the feedback and suggestions for improvement.
The handbook offers practical guidance for each of the four steps of the process:
- preparation before the study visit
- interviews during the study visit
- analysis and feedback from the study visit
- reporting and dissemination after the study visit
The handbook has been developed based on the experience of the EUROCITIES Working Group on Social Inclusion through Education that has been using the critical friend review methodology to guide its study visits and peer reviews for several years.
You can read the handbook below: Eurocities Critical Friend Review Handbook
You can also watch a video on ‘How to use a critical friend review’ here:
