The City of Poznań – Miasto Poznan (UMP) is one of the oldest Polish cities and the capital of the Wielkopolska Region in western Poland. With over half-a-million residents it is the centre of industry, trade, technology, logistics and tourism. The city is also an important academic centre with 25 higher education institutions. Moreover, it is the seat of Poznań International Fair – the largest and oldest exhibition centre in Poland.
Poznań is one of the owners of the Invest4Nature NBS case and Living Lab, focusing on business-oriented aspects of NBS
We use the experience of municipal projects implemented within our previous Horizon2020 Connecting Nature project such as nature-oriented playgrounds at kindergartens, ecological demonstrators project, opening of mostly inaccessible greens spaces for wider public use, as well as implementing floating gardens on rivers and ponds in the city. Poznań Living Lab will focus on promoting investments in NBS and acceleration of their introduction to the market. To achieve this we will concentrate on:
We aim to enhance knowledge on the economic potential of NBS, boost intersectoral cooperation within Poznań NBS projects, and broaden the portfolio of municipal NBS funding that is nowadays mainly focused on city budget or EU funding.
Poznań City Hall is the City’s administrative institution responsible for implementation of legislation decided by the City Council and the Mayor. It is in charge of implementation of the municipality’s own and commissioned tasks, for example municipal budget, spatial policy, culture, education, health, road and greenery maintenance, municipal waste management, etc. The administration is also responsible for managing and implementing different EU projects.
The Invest4Nature project is implemented by one of the City Hall departments – the Project Coordination and Urban Regeneration Office. The project team members have been implementing activities and projects focused on interdisciplinary and cooperative approaches to urban regeneration. Lately, we have been introducing and developing the notion of nature-based solutions (NBS) as crucial elements of urban regeneration and resilience to climate change. We are also focusing on acquiring external financing for the municipal projects – for many years external sources came mainly from EU funding. Recently, the need for identifying and acquiring other, non-EU financing became more prominent (mainly due to general bad economic situation of Polish cities) and it includes cooperation with private partners in common municipal projects. Invest4Nature is thus the perfect opportunity for Poznan to explore the potential in cooperation in relation to NBS.
Agnieszka Dziubała
Project Manager – City of Poznan
