Cities across Europe are under growing pressure to deliver ambitious climate action while maintaining public trust and democratic legitimacy. But advancing the smart and sustainable transition depends on whether city administrations can coordinate across departments, work with communities, experiment with new approaches, and embed successful innovations into everyday governance.
European city administrations are now being offered the opportunity to reflect on and benchmark their organisational capabilities that support democratic green transitions.
The capability check, offered by University College London (UCL) through the Horizon Europe project GreenDEMO, takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.
The initiative builds on recent research mapping more than 400 innovations for democratic green transitions across European cities. The findings show that while municipalities are already experimenting with approaches such as citizen panels, deliberative assemblies, community climate initiatives and new forms of cross-departmental coordination, many still struggle to institutionalise and scale these innovations across public administrations.
To better understand what enables cities to move from isolated experiments to long-term transformation, UCL is gathering insights from public officials working on climate policy, innovation, citizen participation, strategy and governance.
Participating cities will receive access to emerging findings, while cities with multiple respondents will also gain a tailored capability profile benchmarking their administration against peer cities across Europe.
As climate transitions become increasingly politically contested, understanding how public administrations can remain both effective and democratically legitimate is becoming a critical question for cities across Europe.
For European city administrations seeking to benchmark progress and identify areas for further development, the initiative offers a practical opportunity to reflect, compare and contribute to growing European knowledge on democratic green transitions.
Find out more and take part here: https://qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_7NIQwadWcNrHAVg