Are you looking to give your city’s historic urban area new life, whilst preserving its unique cultural and social identity and the environment? Join the HUB-IN Alliance for access to a network of support, tools, learnings and insights from the project’s partners and cities.

Who is the Alliance for?

The Alliance is recruiting Historic Urban Areas:

• Of all shapes and sizes: city centres, communities or quarters with specific historic contexts.
• With rich cultural heritage of any kind, whether it be architectural heritage, or intangible assets in people, stories or cultural activity.
• At any stage in delivering sustainable regeneration.

You can join the Alliance if you are a:

• Municipality
• A key development agency with strong links to the municipality

If this matches your profile, then you have the potential of becoming a HUB-IN Place, using your buildings, stories, people and places to innovate and drive social, economic and environmental value. A HUB-IN place is both local and global, grounded by its sense of place, community and cultural heritage, enhanced by being part of a network of hubs all with the same mission.

What does HUB-IN do?

HUB-IN is currently working with 8 pilot cities: Angouleme, Belfast, Brasov, Genova, Lisbon, Nicosia, Slovenska Bistrica and Utrecht, along with a range of international organisations, networks and universities, linking up to create a Europe-wide ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship.

They are driven by a common mission: to promote the urban transformation and heritage-led regeneration of Historic Urban Areas through innovation and entrepreneurship, while preserving their unique cultural, social and environmental identities and values.

The project wants to:

• Maximise the potential of cultural heritage of Historic Urban Areas
• Develop new innovative and creative skills and jobs
• Create new sustainable opportunities for local traditional businesses
• Ignite new ideas and solutions by matching tradition with innovation

To do this, HUB-IN places engage with local communities and foster relationships between locals and entrepreneurs. HUB-IN acts locally through these places, but then also shares its innovation processes globally, between cities across Europe and beyond.

What’s in it for you?

By joining the HUB-IN Alliance, you will have direct access to all these processes, as well as the products and learnings that emerge from the HUB-IN project as it develops.

These include (but are not limited to):

• Guides and interactive tools to business and finance models
• A directory of good practices (HUB-IN Atlas)
• Opportunities to participate in peer support and collaborative learning with HUB-IN’s 8 pilot cities
• A portfolio of educational services, mentorship and leadership training such as webinars, masterclasses, summer school, conferences and thematic workshops (HUB-IN Academy)

You will have a direct role in participating and co-designing all of these resources, tools and learnings as they are being developed, in order to ensure they meet your city’s need. Integrating the HUB-IN project as it progresses, gives you a chance to learn directly from the 8 cities in real time, following them closely while they pilot new approaches, evaluate their impact and establish action plans.

The Alliance is thus the perfect opportunity not only to boost your knowledge and network, but also to contribute to HUB-IN’s evolving processes, in order to undergo a sustainable urban transformation that is adapted to the specificities of your Historic Urban Area.

Are you interested?

If you are interested in being part of the HUB-IN Alliance:

• Download our brochure for more information
• Fill out this form to express your interest

Note: filling out the Expression of Interest Form does not yet imply a commitment. By expressing your interest, you will be invited to attend an initial webinar to hear from some of the key project partners, gain further insights about HUB-IN and help shape how this wider pool of cities will engage with the project. Subsequently, you will be able to formally sign up to participate in the project and the creation of the Alliance as an “early joiner”.