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PEER REVIEWS Cb
Ongoing
Closed 1 year 6 months 1 week ago

Call for Peers for the first EUI Peer Review - Thessaloniki, June 2023
EUI – Capacity Building

The Call for Peers for the EUI Peer Review in Thessaloniki on the 28-29 June is now open.

The first call for peers for the EUI peer review in Thessaloniki on 28-29 June  was launched on 2 May and closed on 30 May at 12:00 CEST. 

EUI peer reviews are a set of pre-defined activities carried out by a cohort of cities to benchmark their Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) strategies. The aim is to improve the design and implementation of SUD strategies through a process of benchmarking, peer learning and provision of recommendations.

The activity brings together urban authorities undergoing review – they are the cities under review –, and urban authorities providing insights on the challenges faced by the cities under review – they are the peers. A peer review follows a specific fixed methodology and implementation process. The cities under review define the challenges to be addressed according to their specific needs, but the format and the timing of the activity is pre-defined by EUI. Applications for both cities under review and peers are submitted in dedicated separate calls launched at least once per year.

To achieve the capacity building objective of a peer review, peers are expected to share practical knowledge and know-how helping to improve the design and implementation of SUD strategies of the cities under review. While the cities under review are the primary beneficiaries, peers may also improve their capacities thanks to the peer learning process.

Additional information on the set of activities carried out by the peers is available in the Guidance of the Call for Peers.

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Peer Reviews

A peer review is required to focus on three specific challenges related to the design and implementation of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies within Cohesion Policy as defined in article 11 of the ERDF Regulation. Sustainable Urban Development Strategies are designed and implemented through a place-based, participatory and integrated approach.

 

Why participate as a peer?

Each peer city brings its own rich experience, knowledge and distinctive perspectives to what is always a collaborative multilateral exchange. Peer are not only ‘providers’ of knowledge but also benefit and learn from the exchange. 

All peer cities will stand to gain:

  • The prestige and profile of being a recognised front-runner on sustainable urban development;
  • An inside track perspective of the urban peer learning process, from design to implementation, including the opportunity to experience at first-hand how other cities tackle the same thematic or implementation challenge, face specific problems that may affect them some day as well, and how to solve these;
  • A unique opportunity to make a greater impact by exporting their solutions to other urban contexts and promoting these at the EU scale through the EUI network;
  • Promotional opportunities for the most active and impactful peers;
  • Benefit from the exchanges with different cities and from being part of the EUI network.

Additional information on the role of peers are available in the Guidance of the Call for Peers.

Eligible authorities

Eligible applicants are urban authorities involved in designing, updating or implementing a SUD strategy in line with Article 11 of the ERDF Regulation or in line with Article 7 of the past ERDF Regulation. Applicants are asked to provide information about their selection or their eligibility to be selected as an Article 11 city, if known.

Applicants must comply with the eligibility criteria. Applications will then be assessed according to quality criteria, as defined in the Guidance for the call for peers. 

Applications are particularly encouraged from staff members that have participated in previous peer reviews.

More information on the eligibility and evaluation criteria are available in the Guidance.

Intervention logic of the peer review

Peers will carry out several activities within a peer review:

1. Before the Peer Review

Peers are expected to carefully read the background paper of their cities under review before the preparatory webinar and prepare any questions to share with the cities under review. 

A preparatory webinar will be organised before the peer review session, during which cities under review and peers will meet for the first time and have a first discussion on the questions to be addressed.

After the webinar, peers are expected to reflect on what was shared by the cities under review and look for use cases, best practices or insights to share during the peer review event.

2. Peer Review event

Peer review events last two days and will be organised in three discussion rounds; one addressing each of the guiding questions of the cities under review. Each city under review will be reviewed in parallel in a separate breakout session. 

Each discussion round will focus on one guiding question. The city under review will detail their question. Peers will be then asked to rethink the question (What is the problem behind the problem?). The new question will be discussed at the table, with peers providing policy advice based on their experiences, sharing lessons learnt and best practices with the city under review.

3. Follow-up activities

Peers will be invited to answer to follow-up surveys to assess their satisfaction and capacity building in the peer review process.

Interested peers will be encouraged to apply to additional EUI activities to continue their capacity building journey, either by applying to be a city under review, applying for a city-to-city exchange, or participating in a capacity building event.

Call timeline

CallOpen
Opening of call
May 2023
Closure of call
May 2023
Preparatory webinar
Jun 2023
Peer Review event
Jun 2023
1. Opening of call
02 - 30 May 2023

The call for peers for the EUI peer review in Thessaloniki  will open on 2 May 2023. Applicants are invited to fill in the Application Form hosted on EU survey.

2. Closure of call
30 May 2023

The call for peers for the EUI peer review in Thessaloniki will close on 30 May 2023, at 12.00 CEST.

3. Preparatory webinar
20 Jun 2023

The preparatory webinar will take place in the week from 19 to 23 June 2023 and will indicatively last 2 hours.

4. Peer Review event
28 - 29 Jun 2023

The EUI peer review in Thessaloniki will take place on 28-29 June. The event will last for 2 days.

Get support

The EUI Permanent Secretariat will assist applicants during the call for Peers for the Thessaloniki peer review in June 2023. This support will be provided via:

  • Application Pack: Read the Guidance for Peers and courtesy Application Form.
  • Applicant Webinars: Register here to attend on 3 May 10:00 - 11:30 CEST.
  • Bilateral consultations: The Permanent Secretariat offers a limited number of appointments for online consultations on a first come, first serve basis with a limit of one per application. Book your consultation here
  • Email support: Contact us with your queries via capacitybuilding@urban-initiative.eu.

Apply for the Call

The submission of the Application Form is 100% paperless and is done via EU Survey.

Applicants are strongly invited to create their Application Form early in the application process. Going through the different sections of the Application Form and reading the information bubbles in each field will help applicants to better structure and design their project proposals.

The deadline for the submission of the Application Form is 30 May 2023 at 12.00 CEST.

Apply here!
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