Author: katerinaj

In December, Agora’s Final Conference took place in Cluj-Napoca’s former Casino.

Territorial partners shared their learning experiences from the AGORA project. The conference was a public moment of reflection at the end of this 30 months of Agora’s journey.

Hosted by the Prague9 district, AGORA partners met in person to update each other on their Flagship projects, learn together from common challenges, and think about the sustainability of their regeneration strategies.

A last working meeting before the final public conference in Cluj-Napoca on the 6th, and 7th of December.

On the 13th of October, AGORA partners had the chance to visit the site of the former Odkolek factory where a new residential area for the district of Prague9 will be built.

Want to know more? watch the tour guided by Prague9’s coordinator for AGORA Pavel Pospíšek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8auJFo4V_A&list=PLAnhOWTDrM7M4mNjjgqy6znlALk_H1UWw&index=8&ab_channel=InterregAGORA&fbclid=IwAR1USswYe9zBstiEImvcfJ8N2byKx-L9EX2JcGwrIWflo2tvCme0Uzg9eCo

Part of the AGORA Consortium is attending the 58th ISOCARP – International Society of City and Regional Planners World Planning Congress in Brussels.

AGORA partners from Eutropian, Urbasofia, Urbanistični inštitut Republike Slovenije, and the Neckar-Alb Region are disseminating project’s work and results in three different presentations.

For example an AGORA case study was presented:

Multiplicity and Convergence in a low carbon industrial park – Test planning in the Neckar-Alb Region.

Test planning has been implemented by the Neckar-Alb Regional Association with the aim of developing different ideal planning scenarios for the construction of the first inter-municipal CO₂ reduced business and industrial park in the Neckar-Alb region.

After over a year of travel restrictions, now AGORA project is up to speed with the physical meetings. Sofia Development Association and Sofia Municipality hosted the second physical meeting, the meeting of the Steering Committee and a transnational capacity-building seminar in the Bulgarian capital on May 11 and 12, 2022. Territorial partners from Chisinau in Moldova, Cluj-Napoca in Romania, Koprivnica in Croatia, Kranj in Slovenia, Neckar-Alb Region in Germany, Prague, Czech Republic, Slavonski Brod in Croatia, Szarvas in Hungary and Zenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina convened physically and online.Scientific partners from Urbanistični inštitut Republike Slovenije, Urbasofia and Eutropian also joined in person while Pakora and Metropolitan Research Institute – Városkutatás Kft. followed online.

The consortium meeting was filled with intense partner exchange, and mutual learning about diverse co-creation processes, different cities’ Regeneration Agendas, their pilot renovation projects and initiatives to activate the stakeholders. More than a meeting, the partners visited Toplocentrala – the Sofia pilot project, met with the team there and saw the river that needs to be integrated into the usable area.

The transnational capacity-building workshop was also joined by representatives of other Bulgarian municipalities, stakeholders and other INTERREG Danube projects in the area of culture and urban regeneration. Participants worked together on the pillars of the AGORA capacity-building toolkit that will be developed later in the project, varying from financial and business models to stakeholder engagement, from fair spatial planning to sustainability.

After going through many challenges due to different lockdowns and travel restrictions, #InterregAGORA partners finally managed to meet physically in the hometown of their lead partner, the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca.

More than a consortium meeting, these two days of an intense reunion were the moment to get partners closer to each other for better future cooperation. After reviewing activities of more than a year of the project, and planning the last 9 months of activities, #InterregAGORA partners also visited Cluj-Napoca’s pilot area: the Iris District.

3rd project partners meeting was held in Bugibba, Malta, on November 19, 2021, for the Erasmus+ project called TICTAC. The main aim of the meeting was to deal with intellectual outputs, to involve individual partners in their processing and, among other things, dissemination and project management.

The meeting was great and in a relaxed atmosphere and we are looking forward to furthering cooperation.

2nd project partners meeting was held in Sevilla on September 23, 2021, for the Erasmus+ project called TICTAC. The main aim of the meeting was to deal with intellectual outputs, to involve individual partners in their processing and, among other things, dissemination and project management.

The meeting was great and in a relaxed atmosphere and we are looking forward to furthering cooperation.

On training seminars, the AGORA expert group was giving lectures to partners cities while on peer learning seminars the knowledge was improved through sharing experiences on urban regeneration processes among partner cities from the same thematic cluster and the AGORA expert group. As a part of the capacity building programme 3 peer to peer learning sessions were organised. The 3rd one was organized on the 2.11.2021 on the topic of the 3rd thematic cluster – UNUSED/UNDERUSED AREAS AS PUBLIC SPACES’ POTENTIALS.

On training seminars, the AGORA expert group was giving lectures to partners cities while on peer learning seminars the knowledge was improved through sharing experiences on urban regeneration processes among partner cities from the same thematic cluster and the AGORA expert group. As a part of the capacity building programme 3 peer to peer learning sessions were organised. The 2nd one on the 12.10.2021 on the topic of the 1st thematic cluster – LARGE-SCALE (POST-) INDUSTRIAL AREAS.