Working with Eurocities
Sant Boi’s local policymakers and technical staff have gained direct access to the Eurocities Academy. This centralised capacity-building hub provides training modules for city administrators, ensuring Sant Boi’s local leadership is continually trained in the latest methodologies for EU funding and advocacy and managing climate resilience, social inclusion, and urban innovation such as the Mental Health for Children: Science-based Policy or Urban Digital Twins training.
Eurocities has fundamentally shifted how Sant Boi de Llobregat interacts with the European Union. The city has participated in the Eurocities Pulse surveys, which allow us to feed local data and political positions directly into these consultations that are published and used to influence the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Sant Boi has contributed to Eurocities advocacy initiatives to ensure that its specific realities, as a medium-sized, highly committed green and social hub leaving no one behind, are reflected in EU-level policy and funding designs.
The three game-changing advantages of being part of Eurocities for Sant Boi are the continuous training opportunities for public staff, learning from more experienced cities, and amplifying our voice at the EU level.
By pooling influence with Eurocities, Sant Boi shifts from a passive policy-taker to an active policy-maker, ensuring its local realities contribute to shaping EU funding and urban agendas.
What people need to know about the city
Sant Boi de Llobregat is a city of inspiration. Strategically located as part of “Greater Barcelona,” it sits at a unique intersection near the port, airport, and Delta. It offers rivers, forests, and farmland that enhance its environmental quality.
Beyond its location, Sant Boi stands out for prioritising sectors vital to modern challenges, including agriculture, health, logistics, and sustainable mobility. This commitment led it to preserve 1,000 hectares of agricultural land, making it the “green lung” of El Baix Llobregat. Especially noteworthy in this sense is the Agrarian Park, for its landscape, ecological and productive value. The artichoke cultivation is indeed one of the emblems of the town, but so is the local peri-urban agriculture.
Health and the promotion of habits, such as sports or a healthy diet, is the second major asset of the city, as well as the historical link with mental health when mental illness was stigmatised and is now recognised as a leading inclusive city in mental health. Today Sant Boi has one of the most relevant concentrations of actors, institutions and companies dedicated to health care in southern Europe (many of them strongly internationalised), such as Sant Joan de Déu and the Mental Health Cluster of Catalonia. The city, therefore, has a high potential to become a pole of excellence and innovation in the field of socio-health of international reference.
In 2024, Sant Boi envisions becoming a model of sustainability, resilience, health, and innovation, with a focus on youth engagement to foster growth and prosperity. The city aims to be one of Europe’s most sustainable cities, committed to tackling climate change, protecting natural spaces, and excelling in mental health.
In recent years, Sant Boi has committed to and worked towards the quadruple helix: forging alliances and networks among academia, government, businesses, and society, to share agendas and engage in collective development.
With all these assets, Sant Boi inspires! Whether you work here, live here or are just visiting, Sant Boi is a city full of opportunities and resources that you will come to love. Find inspiration in Sant Boi!
