Industry 4.0 ecosystems in Bilbao, Bielsko-Biala, Tartu, and Timisoara
In the AS-TRANSFER project (funded by URBACT), four cities exchange knowledge about how to develop their Industry 4.0 ecosystems. Manufacturing industries are still the beating heart of many European industrial city regions. But global competition is tough, and traditional business…
Urban Production 4.0 in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain
We support the city of Bilbao in the development a new urban production concept: AS-Fabrik. In this project, the city and its partners intend to speed up the digitalisation of manufacturing and advanced services, in order to future-proof the local…
Welcoming International Talent: smarter strategies for medium-sized cities
Cities need international talent to fill high-level job vacancies. Big cities have always managed to do this, but for medium-sized cities, this can be a challenge. In this project, we develop and exchange smart urban approaches to attract and retain…
EUniverCities
Willem van Winden is co-founder and advisor for EUniverCities, a network of cities that want to learn from each other how to create effective city-university partnerships. In EUniverCities, medium-sized cities and their universities work together (in so called tandems) to…
Arnhem Energy Hotspot
With Marco.Broekman, we supported the municipality of Arnhem and the Province of Gelderland to develop a spatial-economic vision on Arnhem as ‘Hotspot Energy’. The main goal was to brand Arnhem as ‘Energy Hotspot’, by strengthening the strategic alignment and programmatic…
The internationalisation of medium sized university cities: challenges and policy responses
In this European policy exchange network the cities of Aalborg, Delft, Magdeburg, Parma, and Tartu exchange their policy responses and learn from each other. Internationalisation is a key challenge for medium size university cities in the battle for brains. Why…
Smart specialisation of cities: InFocus
In the InFocus network (2015-2018), ten leading European cities are developing smart specialisation strategies on the urban level, in collaboration wth their surrounding region. In this URBACT-funded network, Willem van Winden acts as expert, meeting designer, moderator and reporter. Partner…
Learning from successful knowledge cities: a study trip to Aachen, Eindhoven and Leuven
For a delegation from Vienna, in 2016, UrbanIQ organised a 3-day field trip to Aachen, Eindhoven and Leuven. The goal was to learn from triple helix collaborations in these three cities. We visited interesting hotspots and organisations, discussed with local…
Developing “Urban Industry” in Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany’s main dynamic port city, is ambitious. In the last decade, it has developed a former port area into a new part of the city, HafenCity. It is Europe’s largest regeneration site, and in the coming years, the…
URBACT EUniverCities
UrbanIQ acted as lead expert for EUniverCities, an URBACT-sponsored network of cities that want to learn from each other how to create effective city-university partnerships. The project had 10 partner cities: Delft (lead partner), Aachen, Aveiro, Ghent, Lecce, Linkoping, Lublin,…
Training for city politicians
Assigned by URBACT, in 2013 UrbanIQ organised a series of three interactive training seminars in Brussels for elected representatives from 30 European cities, on modern urban management theories and tools. The participants were all involved in Urbact projects. Key topics…
Prospering Cities in the knowledge economy: The KnowCities Project
How can cities develop their knowledge economy, and what can they learn from each other? These are the key questions of the KnowCities project, an EU-sponsored Interreg project that unities 11 partners along the Atlantic Arc: Aviles, Brest, Cardiff, Coimbra,…
Promoting innovation at Skolkovo, Moscow: learning from the best in class
The Skolkovo Foundation in Moscow is developing a highly ambitious new science&innovation city near Moscow. It is to become the key innovative hotspot of Russia, with a concentration of intellectual capital, high-tech firms, startups and research that should generate new…
San Sebastian: creating a cluster of medical technology
Urban IQ was expert in the Tecforlife project, which is aimed at creating a new research driven cluster on assistive technologies in San Sebastian. The project lasted 24 months, beginning January 2009. We analysed the outputs and contribute with improvement…
International comparative study: ‘Developing locations in the knowledge economy’
Despite the enormous interest (and investments!) in the urban knowledge economy, there has been hardly any systematic comparative research on how to create successful locations where knowledge is readily transferred between organisations. A key question to be addressed in this…
Developing Science Quarters in European cities
REDIS is a network of 8 European cities that share the ambition to create a science quarter in their city. We conducted analyses, and guided the inter-city learning process. Also, we wrote papers and reports about trends, developments and lessons…
