From 20 to 22 March 2024, the second Transnational Meeting of U.R. Impact, the project co-funded by the European programme URBACT IV, was held in Murcia, Spain. The ten partner cities - the lead partner Cinisello Balsamo (Italy), Murcia (Spain), Kamza (Albania), Hannut (Belgium), Targu-Frumos (Romania), Brumov (Czech Republic), Mertola (Portugal), Bovec (Slovenia), Ballymahon in Longford (Ireland) and Bielsko-Biała (Poland) - met for an update and networking moment.
Various activities were carried out during the stay, with the aim of sharing the challenges and objectives of each territory. The peculiarities of each, in fact, lead to the search for different practices that can be reinterpreted and applied in other municipalities. Participants had the opportunity to visit the city, discover its urban regeneration projects and delve into the process of measuring social impact - the common thread running through the entire project. Indeed, it is crucial to establish what the results of the policies implemented are for the inhabitants and on the physical space.
To get in touch with the host city, participants had the opportunity to discover the host city with its strengths and challenges. For example, with the aim of uniting the north and south of Murcia, originally divided by the railway and cultural barriers, a bridge was built to eliminate barriers and connect the two on a practical and conceptual level.
The masterclass by Lidia Gryszkiewicz, ad hoc expert, addressed topics such as: what is and what is not impact, its main types, dimensions, elements and the basics of the impact management process and the impact chain. The Theory of Change (Theory of Change), is one of the tools used for the occasion, because it enables the planning of a project’s goals by defining short and long-term objectives and estimating the impact of related actions. In this way, all the partner cities got involved in an exchange of ideas that in the long term can be transformed into concrete practices. This was followed by a workshop held by the lead partner to reflect on the challenges of the individual cities and improve their communication to their stakeholders.
