This conference aims to promote brownfield redevelopment as a solution to limit urban sprawl, land take and soil sealing. Inspiring policies and good practices will be presented by European,regionaland localstakeholders, and the potential offered by EU funds will be explored.

Climate change is considered by many to be the challenge of the 21st century. The urgency and severity of this challenge call for integrated ways of looking at responses to reduce the risks associated with environmental and social stressors, and ensure a secure future for humans and ecosystems. Adapting to climate change requires a coordinated and synergistic approach from a diverse range of actors across sectors, as well as questioning assumptions about the drivers of risk, vulnerability and environmental change.

A cooperative approach allows us to improve learning and knowledge exchange in order to deliver optimal solutions. Interaction and collaboration with the disaster risk reduction (DRR) community is a critical element in improving climate change adaptation (CCA), as the communities share similar goals and activities. Bringing the two groups together is particularly important in relation to the goals and targets of the three major international agreements: Paris, Sendai Framework for DRR and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The 4th ECCA builds on past conferences that took place in Hamburg (2013), Copenhagen (2015) and Glasgow (2017), and aims to:

• Provide a space that facilitates a dialogue among a diverse range of actors from academia, government, business and community on the multiple aspects of climate change adaptation


• Promote the communication and knowledge exchange between researchers, policymakers and practitioners


• Find integrated solutions and inspire action


• Support ongoing efforts to enhance the coherence and synergy between CCA and DRR research, policy and practice


• Discuss key challenges and solutions in cities


• Provide a stage for presenting European’s excellence on Research & Innovation for CCA


• Inform the next European funding framework for Research & Innovation

The biennial European Climate Change Adaptation conference is convened by EU-funded projects on behalf of the European Commission.

Register for the conference here and learn more from the event site.

The ICLEI European Secretariat and the NATURVATION project invite European local governments to join us for an afternoon of peer-exchange around nature-based solutions. During this interactive workshop, you will have the opportunity to:

• Learn how to develop a portfolio of nature-based solution interventions.


• Learn how to develop inclusive buiness models for nature-based solutions.


• Gather with 15+ European cities to exchange successful strategies among peers.

As the workshop is an official pre-event to the European Urban Resilience Forum, you are also warmly invited to remain with us in Bonn on Tuesday, June 25th for a full day of discussion sessions and training workshops around nature-based solutions, multi-level governance for urban adaptation and resilience planning and implementation involving over 50 European cities; already confirmed cities include: Glasgow (UK), Athens (GR), Venice (IT), Weiz (Austria) and many more.

Please note that limited travel funding to attend both the Workshop and the European Urban Resilience Forum is available for up to 15 local government representatives and can be applied for when registering.

Register here

The annual European Urban Resilience Forum 2019 (formerly known as Open European Day) will take place on 25th June 2019 in Bonn, Germany, back-to-back with the 10th annual ICLEI Resilient Cities Conference.

Since 2013, this event has offered a unique exchange platform where city representatives and stakeholders from various local and regional institutions come together to discuss strategies and actions for adapting to climate change and building urban resilience. Aiming to support productive exchange between representatives from cities and regions of all sizes (both with each other and with a range of interested parties, including EU institutions, researchers and consultants), the event has been praised for its informative, open and interactive character and ‘Powerpoint-free’ format. Participants are encouraged to share experiences and points of view on diverse topics, tackling existing challenges in local urban adaptation, while exploring potential solutions and opportunities for future collaboration.

The 2019 edition will build around three streams; nature-based solutions for urban resilience, multi-level governance for adaptation planning, and financing resilience and adaptation; while throughout a variety of sessions and training workshops will cover topics like exploring the co-benefits of adaptation and mitigation, social justice in adaptation actions, strategic narratives for urban heat and health or innovative schemes for municipal financing for resilience and nature based solutions. Additionally, the event will be complemented by a marketplace that will promote match-making and networking and will introduce attendees to relevant initiatives and projects.

In 2019, all those seeking to shape a climate-resilient future for our cities and regions are once again invited to take part – this time under the new banner of the European Urban Resilience Forum! Be sure to add it to your calendar or sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date!

The Resilient Cities congress series

Resilient Cities - The Annual Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation - is the global platform for urban resilience and climate change adaptation, hosted every year in Bonn.

In 2010 ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the World Mayors Council on Climate Change and the City of Bonn, Germany launched Resilient Cities, the first World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change (in 2012 renamed as Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation). More than 500 participants and beyond 30 partners each year helped make Resilient Cities a milestone event connecting local government leaders and climate adaptation experts to discuss adaptation challenges facing urban environments around the globe.

The congress offers a number of sessions and events on a wide variety of topics amongst which were urban risk, resilient urban logistics, financing the resilient city, urban agriculture and food, smart infrastructure and many more.

Resilient Cities also supports the annual Bonn Declaration of Mayors – written by local leaders during the Mayors Adaptation Forum, organized with the World Mayors Council on Climate Change.

The registration for the 2019 congress is now open!

Learn more on the event page.

In this webinar, cities and researchers will share experiences and knowledge on how to best co-create nature-based solutions. Collaborating amongst different stakeholders to plan, design, implement and/or maintain nature-based interventions together can be challenging to begin with, but is ultimately rewarding. Speakers will unpack key ingredients to successful co-creation of nature-based solutions and share how this can work in practice.

Speakers for this webinar are:

• Katharina Hölscher (Research Fellow) and Marleen Lodder (Research Fellow), Dutch Research Institute For Transitions (DRIFT), Rotterdam (Netherlands)


• Mien Quartier (Expert in Social Innovation) and Gerarda Lamerichs, City of Genk (Belgium)


• Ana Clara Pellegrino and Raquel Cruz, Secretary of Environment, Water Resources and Sustainability of Niteroi, Department of Urban Ecology and Climate Change, City of Niterói (Brazil)

The webinar will be moderated by Alice Reil and Daniela Rizzi (ICLEI Europe) as well as Sophia Picarelli (ICLEI South America).

In this webinar you will learn about:

• why co-creation matters


• the concept of co-creation


• design principles for co-creation


• conditions for putting co-creation into practice


• “dos” and “don'ts”


• the experiences of Niteroi (Brazil) in using co-creation in the field of urban sustainability, and


• the experiences of Genk (Belgium) in co-planning nature-based solutions.

Please join the webinar by clicking here.

Please note that the webinar will take place from 15:00-16:00 CEST, or 10:00-11:00 AM (BRT).

Once you have registered, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions on how to join. Please note: we strongly recommend you to join the webinar via computer since GoToWebinar does not support sound for the videos shown during the webinar for those joining via phone.

If you were not able to join our past webinars, you can take watch the videos on the Connecting Nature YouTube channel.

Please keep in mind that our fourth webinar will be held in September 2019. More information will follow soon.

To learn more about the UrbanByNature programme and receive all updates, register here.