Image 19 December 2025 New year, new Peer Reviews! – the results of the Autumn 2025 call are here The fifth EUI Peer Review Call, launched in October 2025 and closed on 18 November 2025, attracted strong interest from cities and urban practitioners across Europe. This round invited applications both from cities under review and from prospective peer reviewers, with the aim of shaping the Peer Review events scheduled for spring 2026. The assessment is now finished – and the results are exciting!
Image EUI 9 December 2025 From learning to leading: How Celje’s European journey sparked a new chapter of urban innovation The city of Celje, tucked in the Savinja Valley in eastern Slovenia, has spent the past few years quietly reinventing itself. Like many small and mid-sized European cities, it faces demographic pressures, talent outmigration, housing challenges and an evolving economic landscape. But Celje is proving that with curiosity, openness and the right kind of support, even a relatively small city can shape its own future - and inspire others along the way.
Image EUI 8 December 2025 Learning, growing, leading: Stories of EUI cities’ transformation journeys From small towns to major cities, a growing number of urban areas are taking advantage of the exciting range of opportunities provided under EU Cohesion Policy. We explore how three cities have drawn on multiple strands of the European Urban Initiative (EUI) and related programmes, such as URBACT to support their sustainable urban development objectives, build their capacities and increase their European visibility.
Image EUI 8 December 2025 Fuenlabrada: blazing an innovation transfer trail for smaller cities Hands up if you’ve heard of Fuenlabrada. For those who haven’t, that might be about to change. That’s because this small city of 200,000 people located on the edge of metropolitan Madrid, seems to be everywhere these days. Whether through the EUI’s recent Policy Lab on Housing, its Innovative Actions programme, the City to City twinning mechanism or URBACT, Fuenla -as locals call it- is hard to miss.
