REACHOUT General Assembly news

After one year of carrying out the various work streams under this H2020 funded project, the REACHOUT consortium met in Milan for the General Assembly on 20-21 October. Two days of highly interactive exchange between our cities, tool developers and storytellers brought a clearer view of the form that our Triple A- toolkit is taking. 

‘The climate stories for each city are shaping as the variety of tools are starting to produce interesting results, replicable in other cities in Europe.’ – Ad Jeuken (REACHOUT Project Coordinator) and Hasse Goosen (REACHOUT Innovation Manager)

The General Assembly is an important moment for the consortium to track progress in the various work packages, approve decisions and facilitate the discussion among partners. Before kicking off the Assembly, we had a guided tour in the regenerated area of Milano Porta Nuova, visiting Milan’s climate resilience highlights and the renowned Bosco Verticale.

 

Day 1 

“By using a narrative structure, you can create a story that the listener wants to listen to, and which can trigger action.”

 Day 1 started with sessions led by our partners CAS and NGI about climate story maps as a tool to:

 

  • build narratives, awareness
  • connect to stakeholders
  • find communication possibilities

 

REACHOUT is currently supporting our 7 city hubs in the development of climate stories that use a narrative structure and help visualize the project output.

We also heard inspiring pitches from our city hubs Athens and Logrono on how they are progressing with their story maps on addressing heatwaves. This was followed by a group discussion and exchange between all our city hubs. 

 The afternoon sessions focused on our climate resilience toolkit carousel, presented by our tool developers Tecnalia, Deltares, University Cork College, VU Amsterdam and CMCC. Excellent discussions followed in our Cross-hub development teams, sharing outcomes and exploring possibilities and scenarios on heat, floods, pathways, adaptation libraries, social vulnerability and the financial sector.

Day 2 

Day 2 started with ‘Co-creation lounge’ led by our partners at Ecologic Berlin. Our 7 city hubs and research partners had the opportunity to share experiences and to evaluate, exchange and reflect on engagement activities. 

 In the afternoon sessions the focus was on presenting and discussing the toolkit modules development, followed by two parallel sessions: the first one on business models (together with research partners and tool developers), the second one about the Learning Program (coordinated by Resilient cities Network)

Overall, the General Assembly was a very useful moment to coordinate and refine the work of the consortium and, most of all, to better align the work of the tool developers with the cities’ needs. The next scheduled activities are the City Hub workshops in Cork, Lillestrom and Logrono.

 

Not available yet

The climate story of Gdynia​

Short summary: A story about Jan and Maria during extreme precipitation.

Theme: Flooding

End user: Citizens

Link to the story: under construction