EU Joint Research Center
2021
EU Joint Research Center and others
The "Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies" is a comprehensive resource aimed at guiding local authorities and stakeholders in implementing integrated urban strategies within the EU's cohesion policy framework. It emphasizes a policy learning approach tailored to various territorial and administrative contexts, providing practical suggestions for addressing key challenges in strategy design and execution. The Handbook outlines six essential components for effective urban development: strategic dimension, territorial focus, governance, cross-sectoral integration, funding and finance, and monitoring. It is a collaborative effort led by the European Commission's Directorates-General for Regional and Urban Policy and the Joint Research Centre, incorporating insights from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars. The Handbook also leverages data from STRAT-Board, a database that documents SUD strategies from 2014 to 2020, ensuring that it is grounded in real-world applications and examples.
The Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies provides valuable knowledge on how to implement integrated and place-based urban strategies under cohesion policy. It aims to serve local authorities, managing authorities and all other relevant stakeholders.
The Handbook is conceived as a policy learning tool, responding to the needs of different territorial and administrative contexts. It does not provide a ‘quick fix’, but rather, it offers suggestions on how to tackle key challenges during the process of strategy design and implementation, by giving concrete examples, and referring to existing studies and guidelines.
The Handbook addresses the EU’s integrated approach to urban development by means of six building blocks: strategic dimension, territorial focus, governance, cross-sectoral integration, funding and finance, and monitoring.
The Handbook is a joint initiative by the Commission’s Directorates-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO), and the Joint Research Centre (JRC), and which benefits from active involvement from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars. The Handbook relies on data available in STRAT-Board, a database and online tool which provides an overview of SUD strategies implemented in 2014-2020.