2025 retrospective: EUI and UAEU cities leading growth, exchange, and urban transformation

The Cities Forum 2025 gathered over a thousand urban stakeholders in Kraków and online for three days of dialogue, peer learning and exchange. Co-organised by DG REGIO and the European Urban Initiative, the event focused on consultation and dialogue to gather ideas for the upcoming EU Agenda for cities. 

Over three days, 765 participants, including 532 city representatives from 36 countries, together with EU leaders, shared perspectives on building a more resilient and forward-looking urban Europe. The Cities Forum delivered 29 sessions in onsite and online formats. Discussions addressed urgent themes such as housing affordability, climate action, digital innovation, access to funding and stakeholder engagement. All sessions were designed to collect concrete input from participants, directly feeding into the EU policy agenda for cities. The forum catered to both experienced urban changemakers and newcomers, offering participants a valuable opportunity to explore the latest developments in EU urban initiatives and policies.

Cities Forum take-aways

With 56 projects currently underway across European cities and a new call in preparation, 2025 represent a significant step forward in testing innovative urban solutions.

• Call 1 projects: The 14 New European Bauhaus demonstrators are progressing. A highlight was the November 2025 meeting in Fuenlabrada, where cities shared challenges and solutions.

• Call 2 projects: Starting in January 2025, these 22 projects on ‘Greening Cities,’ ‘Sustainable Tourism,’ and ‘Harnessing Talents’ launched transfer partnerships with cities across Europe to replicate their solutions.

• Call 3 projects: 20 new projects focusing on ‘Energy Transition’ and ‘Technology in Cities’ began in October 2025.

Cities funded by Innovative Actions also contributed to discussions , on topics such as ‘Affordable and Social Housing’ or ‘Cities as Enablers of Innovation’ during various events and EUI knowledge activities.

2025 also saw preparations for the Innovative Actions Call 4. The next chapter of innovation will indeed begin soon with a new call planned for 2026, with a focus on local innovation and for smaller cities.

In 2025, we expanded our efforts to strengthen urban stakeholders’ capacities through numerous events and support mechanisms.

• The cities of Torrelavega (Spain), Alba Iulia (Romania), Sörmland (Sweden), Perugia (Italy), Stalowa Wola (Poland), and Malmö (Sweden) hosted 6 Peer Reviews. 
• Poznań (Poland), Jelgava (Latvia), Fundão (Portugal), Budapest (Hungary), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Panevėžys (Lithuania), Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Tallinn (Estonia), Banská Bystrica (Slovakia), Celje (Slovenia), Monaghan Town (Ireland), Fysiskt (Sweden) were involved in 12 Capacity Building events.

• 88 applications for City-to-City Exchanges were approved, helping cities exchange knowledge and solutions, and learn from each other.

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2025 was the year of the full implementation of the EUI's knowledge activities, with:

• The Focused Policy Lab and Capacity-Building event Access to funding in Rotterdam (NL) brought together more than 83 participants from 17 member states to improve skills on how to combine different funding sources, building on the study ‘Bridging the gap: Exploring Innovative Financing Schemes in European cities’. 
• The Focused Policy Lab Affordable and social housing in Fuenlabrada (ES) and the SHARE project, hosted more than 70 participants who tackled the housing unaffordability crisis of EU using case studies from Vienna, Budapest, Getafe, Vaasa, Tallinn, Thessaloniki, Barcelona, Brussels, Egaleo and Fuenlabrada to explore different solutions.
• The capitalisation study Integrated and active mobility, launched in July 2025, explores how cities can actually make active mobility happen, building on UIA, EUI and URBACT projects. Insights came from a questionnaire, interviews with 11 shortlisted cities, and two thematic webinars, with a key milestone being the EU City Lab on active mobility jointly organised with URBACT, in Hamburg. The final report will be published in March 2026.

Portico has continue to grow with over 2,000 learning resources for urban practitioners and  a community of 8,000+ members, and tools like the Urban Matchmaker that facilitate C2C Exchanges applications and visits between EU cities. The Urban Panorama now brings together 30 EU initiatives that specifically support sustainable urban development. It provides targetted information and details and direct contacts, and establishes the basis for the Cities Helpdesk, which is to be implemented under the EU Agenda for Cities.

It has also been a productive year for the Urban Agend for the EU. The Sustainable Tourism and Greening Cities Partnerships were extended, while the Food and Cities of Equality Partnerships wrapped up their action plans after months of dedicated effort. Likewise, the Water Sensitive City and Building Decarbonisation Partnerships completed their orientation papers. And finally the formation of the new Compact Cities Partnership in its final stages, setting the scene for an exciting year ahead in 2026.

Find more details on the UAEU website.

The Urban Contact Points (UCPs) continue to provide tailored support to urban practitioners in their national languages, raising awareness of EUI activities and guiding beneficiaries in accessing them. The network is now completely established, with all EU countries represented.

In 2025, coordination with URBACT and National URBACT Points has been further strengthened to better serve cities across Europe. Through regular exchanges and collaboration, UCPs help ensuring that cities can benefit from available knowledge, opportunities, and EUI resources.

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As we close the chapter on 2025, our team is reflecting on a year that has been full of knowledge sharing, collaboration and emotions. Together with cities across Europe, we have continued to innovate, share and inspire, building meaningful connections and driving forward impactful urban solutions.

We are excited to enter 2026 with the same energy and commitment, and we look forward to continue working alongside European cities and our community of experts and urban practitioners, to develop new ideas, partnerships and projects.