Project
Cities and Regions
Europe's cultural achievements, activities and institutions are to be found in its cities and regions. This means that the cities and regions share a direct responsibility for Europe, above and beyond their local and regional competences.
Cities and Regions as European Players
The project works with a group of interested cities and regions to explore how their cultural achievements can create "Soul for Europe" and what practical contribution they can make as European players. The project could also be a good way of shifting the focus of local and regional cultural work and cultural policy from local topics to "global European topics", for example the concept and future of the European city - from Helsinki to Palermo. Concrete examples will be used to define categories of historical and current contributions to European culture.
Such categories include:
- conversion
- outstanding cultural achievements
- landscapes of historical remembrance
- cross-border regions
- cultural cohesion
- innovation culture
The idea is to produce a set of guidelines (white paper) on the European dimension of the cities' and regions' cultural activities. The white paper will be presented to the initiative's Steering Committee in the European Parliament to ensure that it acquires political validity
Partners
So far, the list of the participating cities and regions includes: Amsterdam, Berlin, Brandenburg, Budapest, Essen, Görlitz, Hesse, Istanbul, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Krakow, Liverpool, Luxembourg, Luxembourg's Ministry of Culture, North Rhine-Westphalia, Pécs, Rhine-Neckar, Rhineland-Palatinate, Timisoara. Once the initial interim results are available, the group of participating cities and regions will be extended.
Professional supervision by the Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), Essen and the Ernst Bloch Zentrum, Ludwigshafen
The European Committee of the Regions (Brussels), in which the concept will be presented and discussed, along with its President, Michel Delebarre
For more information on the project click here.
For the Cities and Regions Manual please see downloads.
