Eurodelta Visions by the Next Generation

The Next Generation Podium for Eurodelta was successfully held as an online symposium in May 2021 from the SURE Network perspective. With a strong consortia of City of Amsterdam, The Hague, Province of South Holland, Deltametropolis Association and Braun-Urban, we offered young students and researchers the stage to express their visions regarding the future of the Strategic Urban Region Eurodelta (SURE). As a result, they developed ideas and strategies to address environmental, technological and infrastructural challenges and presented those publicly with European stakeholders and experts.

The results from the symposium and the student visions are being published as a catalogue (see downloads). With the success of the first edition, we are in the process of planning the second edition of the symposium for spring 2022.  Send us an email if you wish to participate and join the knwoledge network.

Insights from the symposium

All the presentation videos and discussions have been put in together. Check this link. You can watch them and send us your ideas if you weren’t able to attend the symposium.

The students and researchers participating in the podium were split into 10 interdisciplinary teams. The teams developed relevant ideas and concepts to be considered and carried out by the SURE Network in the future. Concepts such as the “Rhine Curator”, who would coherently orchestrate cross-border developments along the main north-south link between Rotterdam and Basel and the “URdelta App” is an idea to launch a digital application with the purpose of informing and engaging people in the design of the Eurodelta.

We see this discussion at the online symposium and the developing platform of “Eurodelta Knowledge Platform” for continuous exchange between stakeholders (practitioners from cities, regions and institutions) and students/young professionals from different fields of expertise/practice.

The Podium allowed to reflect upon various proposed visions for the territory of the Eurodelta and activities for the SURE Network . It tackled current and upcoming challenges as well as strategies to combat climate change, energy transition, economic prosperity, digital transformation and cross-border cooperation (in the field of mobility and infrastructure, water management and resilience, inclusiveness and cohesion, etc.). The teams developed in a short amount of time ad-hoc concepts and strategies leading the Eurodelta towards a dynamic and innovative cross-border megarion, with knowledge-driven cooperation projects („Co-Triangles“ / „Borderless living“) in Eindhoven, Liège and Aachen, with a „mobility as an enabler“ – approach to enhance border traffic between The Netherlands and Germany,, with in a decentralized energy network (“Energy Petals”/”Rhine Maas Energy Landscape) from the Port of Rotterdam towards the Rhine Maas Region, with a “Waste Stock Exchange” across the entire Eurodelta territory and a “URDelta App” connecting all citizens and Eurodelta enthusiasts to commonly shape and develop the future of the Eurodelta in an inclusive manner.

Below in the videos, you can see what has been proposed by the participants.

For instance, the theme ‘circular economy’ looked perfect to address many spatial challenges that benefit from the Eurodelta scale approach. The logic of working with one another and sharing knowledge and practices on an international level seems unavoidable for a transition towards circular practices: new working environments and productive (manufacturing) networks, inland work/water? connections towards Germany and Belgium, logistics by rail and waterways, raw material metabolisms of the whole region, etc. ‘Circular’ only starts making real sense on a macro-regional scale level.

Do you have any other specific topic for the Eurodelta? For example, networks of manufacturing as knowledge landscapes. The transition of work landscapes and the need to produce more locally/regionally is a European challenge, particularly strong as an idea in the Eurodelta region.

Please send us more suggestions like this for us to develop an integral platform.

Following are some bold conclusions from the symposium that we will be further working on;

— SURE Scientific Board: structuring of SURE scientific board together with some universities and professors (who actively contributed).

— Eurodelta Knowledge Platform: searching for ways to continue an interactive and knowledge sharing platform with universities and practices. The prominent goal of the platform will be to promote research & transfer between universities and spin-off organizations/ networks in the field of spatial planning, urban design, transport and mobility, public governance, etc. on the scale of the Eurodelta.

— Vision Catalogue: all the Eurodelta visions proposed by the participants of Next Generation Podium will be compiled in September 2021. This will include some essential recommendations as next steps for the cities and regions and other stakeholders of the Eurodelta.

— SURE Network webinar: The vision catalogue will be presented as results from symposium to the Members of SURE Network, requesting their inputs and directing towards some next steps of SURE.

— EU Week of the Regions: A discussion on this subject will be opened up at the 19^th European Week of the Regions and Cities, within the SURE workshop. If you want to be a part of this, please send us an email.

You can watch all the presentations from speakers during the symposium here.