Donostia-San Sebastian, Munich and Grenoble Alpes Metropole have scooped the top prizes at the Eurocities Awards 2022. Each demonstrated outstanding commitment to this year’s theme, ‘an era of new beginnings,’ which focussed on the way cities can dream, act and lead together to fight climate change.

“Our cities constantly strive to promote the vitality and well-being of their community and to work for a sustainable future. Yet, two years of pandemic have taken their toll, and now is time to reset our course. The Eurocities Awards celebrate the triumphs of cities and can help provide inspiration for some of our best ideas to be more widely shared, and benefit more people,” said Dario Nardella, President of Eurocities and Mayor of Florence.

The awards were selected by a panel of expert judges across three categories:

• For ‘dream together – Future generations transforming the cities’ Donostia-San Sebastian won with its Innovation challenge – which put personal skills at the heart of a fun talent development programme for young people.
• For ‘act together – Skills and competences for the future ’ Munich won with its Readiness and Digital Integration school – a unique digital skills school that opens up the city’s entire business network and gives refugees, women & children a chance to transform their lives.
• For ‘lead together – Scalable solutions for positive climate impact’ Grenoble Alpes Metropole won with its Batitec second hand store – which seeks to bring elements of the circular economy into the construction industry.

Awards theme 2022

“First we must dream together, because social exclusion and disconnection have increased among many groups, but especially children and youth these last years,” said Nardella.

The ‘dream together’ category sought projects that follow new approaches to increasing social cohesion and a sense of belonging among children and/or youth.

“Secondly, we must act together. In cities across Europe there is a significant mismatch between the supply of labour and the demand for new skills and competences. If we want to emerge from this crisis and target something more than recovery, we must bridge this gap,” added Nardella.

The ‘act together’ category sought projects that were developed alongside local communities to boost the skills and competencies, and put more people into meaningful jobs.

“Thirdly, we must lead together. Cities have a key role to play in ensuring that common targets of the European Green Deal and Agenda2030 will be reached,” explained Nardella.

The ‘lead together’ category sought participatory projects that lead the transformation towards low-carbon, resilient, biodiverse and ultimately climate neutral cities.

[ENDS]

Notes to Editors

1. 1.Eurocities wants to make cities places where everyone can enjoy a good quality of life, is able to move around safely, access quality and inclusive public services and benefit from a healthy environment. We do this by networking almost 200 larger European cities, which together represent some 130 million people across 38 countries, and by gathering evidence of how policy making impacts on people to inspire other cities and EU decision makers.
   Connect with us at https://eurocities.eu/ or by following our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts
2. The Eurocities conference focuses on a different theme each year. During the three-day conference, more than 500 delegates from over 100 cities around Europe focussed on what cities must do to ensure a sustainable future. More information on Eurocities 2022 is available here: https://eurocities2022.eu/
3. Recordings from the plenary sessions are being made available here.
4. The Eurocities Awards showcase outstanding achievements by our member cities in the delivery of local activities or practices which improve the quality of life for citizens. Nine cities were shortlisted for the awards across the three categories: for ‘dream together’ Donostia-San Sebastian, Kharkiv and Oulu; for ‘act together’ Barcelona, Gothenburg and Munich; and for ‘lead together’ Grenoble Alpes Metropole, Turku and Zaragoza.
5. The Eurocities Awards are judged by an expert panel each year. For 2022 this was: Markku Markkula, Kitty Fehringer, Thomas Matthew, Jussi Pullinen, Mari Vaattovaara,. More info here: https://eurocities2022.eu/awards
6. Take a look at the 2022 finalists here: https://eurocities.eu/latest/eurocities-awards-nominees-2022/
7. Photos from the Awards ceremony and Eurocities 2022 are being made available here.

Media contact:
Alex Godson: +32 495 298 594 // alex.godson@eurocities.eu