STEP UP’s Companion Cities are ambitious cities that actively engage with STEP UP and commit to testing STEP UP’s approaches to SEAP and innovative project development, helping to improve models, methods and solutions through feedback and learning.
To assist Companion Cities in applying STEP UP’s approaches in their own context, and to share expertise from the project, Companion Cities receive coaching from their local STEP UP partners, tailored to their needs, local context and current state of sustainable city planning.
To find out more about each of the STEP UP city’s Companion Cities, please click on the links below:
State of sustainable city planning
To make the STEP UP approach workable for as many cities as possible it was essential to gain a better understanding of the state of sustainable city planning, implementation and key issues of the STEP UP Learning Network. This took place before the coaching activities started, allowing STEP UP to ascertain adaptability of the proposed approach, gain feedback and focus the coaching on issues that are important not only to STEP UP partner cities but also to a wider network of ambitious cities.
To find out more about the findings from this research,
click here.
Coaching activities with Companion Cities
Based on the state of sustainable city planning and the key issues of the companion cities, coaching activities (or ‘trajectories’) focused on specific topics were developed by the designated STEP UP partners in each Learning Network. Companion City coaching ran from the end of 2013 until early 2015 and covered a multitude of topics that Companion Cities had expressed an interest in getting acquainted with and exchanging experiences about.
Coaching was carried out in many different ways, depending on local circumstances and preferences, as well as on the availability of specific methods and tools. In some cases, the coaching was linked with training courses – more information on this can be found here.
Towards the end of the coaching process, STEP UP partners held interviews with the Companion Cities in order to gather feedback on how useful the coaching had been, and suggestions for ways in which it could be improved if further coaching was to take place in the future.
To find out more about STEP UP coaching activities and feedback received from Companion Cities,
click here.