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Pictured left to right: Frances Dowds, Project Manager – Open Cities, Belfast City Council; Derville Brennan, Programme Executive, S&E Regional Assembly and Laura Leonard, European Unit, Belfast City Council

Pictured left to right: Frances Dowds, Project Manager – Open Cities, Belfast City Council; Derville Brennan, Programme Executive, S&E Regional Assembly and Laura Leonard, European Unit, Belfast City Council

OPEN Cities Project

OPEN Cities is a British Council project funded by URBACT and led by Belfast City Council in collaboration with a network of European cities. The partner cities include Bilbao, Cardiff, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Nitra, Poznan, Sofia and Vienna. URBACT is a European exchange and learning programme promoting sustainable urban development.

The OPEN Cities partners recognise that the arrival of large numbers of new residents can create great opportunities for innovation and progress in social, economic and cultural development.

OPENCities aims to explore how cities can attract and retain migrant populations and what initiatives cities can employ to make themselves a popular choice with international workers.


Cities that want to attract and retain international populations have to be 'open' cities that create a good ‘offer’ for international workers and foster a local climate that recognises and welcomes diversities and provides freedom of thought and speech.　

The project has considered how cities can develop more proactive policies to create OPENCities to better attract or retain mobile international populations, as they are important to both the competitive and convergence objectives of the European Union.

Development

Baseline studies
Baseline studies were completed by each partner city during the development phase of the project. The aim was to show how open each city was and what initiatives were currently in place. These provided a starting point from which we measured the impact of the project.

Index of Openness
One of the objectives of OPENCities was to develop a common definition of openness allowing cities to carry out benchmarking and self-assessment.　 Data to populate an OPENCities Index was gathered across the lifetime of the project and will continue beyond.　 A feasibility study on whether openness can be measured internationally was completed and is available online. www.opencities.eu

Local Support Groups
Local Support Groups were set up in each of the partner cities with the aim of spreading the learning from trans-national exchanges to a broader cross-section of local stakeholders and to ensure that the lessons learnt through the OPENCities project led to change at a local level.　 Each city produced a Local Action Plan (LAP) which has formed the legacy of the project.　 LAPs will contain to deliver innovative pilot projects led by cities, policy makers and stakeholders to actively address barriers to economic migrants.

Thematic Papers
Papers were produced by Greg Clark, OPENCities advisor, on each theme of the project

  • Leadership and Governance
  • Internationalisation
  • Integration and Inclusion

Conference reports were produced as a result of 5 thematic workshops held across the lifetime of the project.

These　reports are compiled by the lead expert for the project, Ian Goldring, with input from each of the cities by way of case studies relating to the topic.

Full copies　of all reports mentioned above are available　to download from the URBACT website www.urbact.eu/opencities

The Office of International Relations, Research and Special Projects within Dublin City Council held a Peer Review process in November 2010. Bringing together members of the Eurocities Economic Migration Working Group with OPENCities partners, Peter Finnegan’s team presented a case study on the cities approach to attracting International Students. The policy objective of Dublin City Council implements the national policy objective for Ireland to become internationally recognised and ranked as a world leader in the delivery of high-quality international education.

The Peer Review coincided with a week of activities in the City of Dublin exploring innovation and creativity, which culminated in an Innovation Forum. For further information on Dublin activities contact Jamie Cudden: jamie.cudden@dublincity.ie

The Final OPENCities conference will be held in Brussels on 25th May 2011 at the European Economic and Social Committee / Committee of the Regions venue, Brussels, Belgium.