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RENERGY
In times of excessive reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels, all its disadvantages included, the support of the production and use of renewable energies (RES) is especially important as this is one of the pre-conditions of sustainable growth. However, to strengthen European competitiveness in the energy field and ensure local economic growth, more effective local and regional level actions are needed, addressing shortcomings that jeopardise efficient planning and implementation of energy policies.
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D-AIR
Airports are increasingly vital to the prosperity of regions, as they are no longer just part of the economy, but instead increasingly define regional economic ecosystems. However, the growing economic importance and growth of airports needs to be balanced against adverse environmental impacts as emissions from civil aviation have increased significantly in the last decades and it is forecasted that air traffic will more than double by 2020.
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AT FORT
The overall objective of At Fort is to facilitate the adaptive re-use of fortified heritage sites by exploring solutions for successful approaches and methods to deal with pre-selected enabling conditions and creating better frameworks for their exploitation. These sites represent significant cultural values for the regions involved (as it is for many other regions in Europe), while at the same time they are challenging factors of regional sustainable economic development.
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GUTS
The challenge GUTS partners are facing is how to reconcile economic development and accessibility of their cities with an improving quality of life, environmental protection and fighting climate change. Currently 31% of all air pollution is coming from transport.
The project tackles this problem through a pioneer approach, following the line of the Commission Directive on promotion of clean and energy efficient road transport vehicles (COM2007). continue reading
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GovernEE
The specific objective of the project is to improve the energy efficiency (EE) in public buildings in general and historic buildings in particular. The special focus on historic buildings is important as (1) little progress has been made in this respect although it is a crucial problem in most European cities; (2) it is often the case that public institutions are located in historic buildings; so it is of high relevance for responsible decision-makers; (3) the task is demanding and requires special expertise as there are very specific regulations to be fulfilled complicated by the fact that generating energy from fossil fuels to heat these buildings is rather expensive; (4) there are also social implications e.g. inhabitants moving out of historic building blocks due to high energy costs although for the proper maintenance of these buildings it is crucial for them to remain inhabited.
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TAB
The central concern of the TAB project is air pollution. It impacts at the local level but may be caused far away from where the main effects are realised and may be aggravated by the effects of climate change, particularly severe weather events. All TAB partner cities/regions have a strong industrial character with large human populations. They suffer from three main types of air pollution sources, industry, traffic and household heating, and ambient levels of particulates that exceed national averages. A key impact is the increasing burden of air pollution on the environment and human populations.
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2Health
The demographic change in combination with financial crisis negatively impacts the healthcare institutions, which partly can be seen by an increasing demand & a large supply/competence gap coupled with a growing share of (chronically ill) senior healthcare workers for which the workplace has to be adapted to motivate them to stay employed.
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CREATIVE CLUSTERS
The starting assumption of the project is that creativity can act as a driving force for economic development of small urban centres and not only of big cities. The objective is to promote the exchange of experiences and best practices and the proposal of policy recommendations and action plans related with creative clusters in low density urban areas. Under the theme creative clusters/cities, the main issues addressed are: creative clusters: diversifying local economic base; creative entrepreneurs and talented people: attraction and retaining; promoting the creative city: a new range of facilities and infrastructures; others (branding the creative place; events and cultural agendas as catalysts; local creative education environments).
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DaHar
The DaHar partnership represents small and medium sized Danube cities with ports of international importance. The economic development and participation in the economic circulation of these cities could be enhanced through the optimal utilisation of port development in the frame of enhancing waterway cargo transport on the Danube in a transnational context. To this end, DaHar partners wish to utilise the logistical and multi-modal development capacities of their ports and port areas, develop their ports in a harmonised manner. This way, small and medium sized cities will find their position in the development of waterway cargo transport, which results in the specification and diversification of their logistical and multi-modal functions in a logistical network of Danube cities and ports.
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ESIMeC
ESIMeC is an URBACT II network of nine medium sized cities that will work in partnership to develop innovative economic strategies to help these and similar cities cope better with the challenges of sustainable economic development, particularly in an economic downturn. Based on the particularities and assets of medium sized towns, the network will focus on long term solutions and place workforce development as an instrument for sustainable economic growth at the heart of its project implementation.
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PLUS
The lighting of public space accounts for 60% of public energy use in an average city. It is clear that any reduction that can be achieved will have a significant impact on total energy use and, therefore, on CO2 emissions, without forgetting the positive effects on public finances. The PLUS project makes a significant contribution to decreasing energy use and rationalizing energy consumption related to public lighting.
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REPAIR
The main objective of REPAIR is to promote the regeneration of former military sites of historic, cultural and social values, such as forts, prisons, detention areas, but in a sustainable and locally-anchored way involving local stakeholders to the extent possible and drawing on the experience of the project partners. Repair has 8 partners (Medway, New Dutch Waterline, Cartagena, Rostock, Venice, Charente-Maritime, Karlskrona and Thessaloniki) actively involved and they all have ample experience in urban spatial planning and development of city areas.
