en
Slovenščina
Italiano
The European partnership titled Driving Urban Transitions towards a Sustainable Future – DUT has published the results of the second call under the partnership. Over 600 project partners,within 150 proposals, aplied for approximately 170 million euros in funding.
Among the 42 selected projects, there are 5 projects, which co-financing will be managed through the Slovenian Public Agency for Research, Innovation, and Science (ARIS), including NATURGO – Nature Based Solutions and Urban Governance, where the lead researcher is Dr. Jerneja Penca from the Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies (MIOS) at ZRS Koper.
The NATURGO Project (Nature-based solutions and urban water management) will enhance the understanding of how current criteria, structures, processes, and practices in urban water management strategies consider nature-based solutions, and how they can be improved. The project develops a comprehensive understanding of participatory planning and management, water management, and foundational strategies for nature-based solutions. The partners, in specific locations within partner cities, engage in strategic research in collaboration with municipal decision-makers and stakeholders to understand current strategies to develop future ones for water management. They use advanced scenario design methods to gain a better understanding of how long-term goals, impacts, costs, and other factors are reflected in water-related strategies. Beyond specific cases, they analyze how key structural and procedural aspects of governance can enable collaborative and effective planning, implementation, and maintenance of nature-based solutions in the urban water sector.
The NATURGO Project will significantly enhance the existing work of MIOS in strengthening resilience to the effects of climate change in our coastal cities, focusing on water-related issues (flooding from severe storms, sea-level rise, increased stormwater, summer droughts…). Our researchers are developing solutions for these challenges with the Municipality of Piran within the SCORE Project, and discuss these issues from an international perspective in the RethinkBlue project and other international networks. The ECOSMART, ECO2SMART, and POSEIDONE Projects, as well as various non-project knowledge exchanges, facilitate our strong connections with local stakeholders. On one hand, NATURGO will bring concrete solutions to the local environment, particularly in collaboration with the Municipality of Piran and all local stakeholders. And on the other hand, it will transfer local insights into strategic recommendations that will form the basis for policy measures and scientific conclusions in a broader context,” said Dr. Jerneja Penca, Head of the Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies at ZRS Koper.
The DUT partnership is one of the 49 European partnerships under the Horizon Europe framework program, involving 67 partners from 28 countries, including national and regional policymakers, research and innovation funders, and agencies working in the field of urban policy. The partnership builds on the successes of the Joint Programming Initiative Urban Europe (JPI UE) and aims to create a strong community to drive transitions towards a sustainable future in urban environments and to establish a high-quality platform for research and innovation, through which cities can become more sustainable, inclusive and livable.
