Eurocities Awards 2022

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.