CoNECT project at the EUKN Policy Lab 2025 “Urban resilience to prevent and combat climate change impacts”

On April 8, 2025, the CoNECT project (Collective Networks for Everyday Community Resilience and Ecological Transition), funded by JPI Urban Europe, actively participated in the EUKN Policy Lab 2025 held at the Casa de la Arquitectura in Madrid under the theme “Urban resilience to prevent and combat climate change impacts”.

The event, co-organized by the European Urban Knowledge Network (EUKN) and Spain’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda (MIVAU), brought together policymakers, urban planners, academics, and local actors from across Europe to discuss how to enhance urban resilience in the face of increasing climate change impacts—especially floods caused by extreme weather events like the 2024 DANA in the Spanish Mediterranean region.

European Panel (Session in English)

The morning session highlighted international experiences offering a strategic perspective:

• Birgit Georgi, expert consultant, presented the Water Sensitive Partnership from the EU Urban Agenda, emphasizing integrated and water-sensitive approaches.

• Marco Taal, from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, introduced the national Integrated River Management Programme in the Netherlands—a European benchmark.

Spanish Panel: CoNECT in Context

The Spanish session showcased six key initiatives with territorial, institutional, and technical approaches:

• Elisa Rivera, from the Ministry of Science, discussed how innovation supports urban resilience in municipalities affected by the DANA storm and refered to the “Innovation for Climate Resilience Programme” that is aimed at promoting the design of a new model of action in response to catastrophes with climate criteria that integrates scientific knowledge with the technical capacities of the territory, articulating an innovative ecosystem of territorial basis for recovery and transformation.

• Jorge Olcina, professor at the University of Alicante, addressed climate change challenges in Spain’s Mediterranean coast. He put forward 5 key proposals under the title ‘without comprehensive management there can be no effective risk reduction’: the need to review official hazard mapping, not to rebuild or re-inhabit severely affected areas, review of all existing municipal planning, the creation of a national platform for disaster risk reduction and finally, the need to collaborate in the common goal of a more resilient society.

• Francisco Javier Sánchez Martínez, from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, spoke on flood risk protection strategies from prevention to adaptation.

• Mario Ginés Pérez Cervera, Mayor of Los Alcázares (Murcia), presented the urban resilience strategies that his municipality has designed and implemented in the last years.

• Lorena Silvent Ruiz, Mayor of Catarroja, shared their town’s post-DANA 2024 reconstruction agenda.

• Luis Touriño, innovation manager at EOSA, presented the green and blue infrastructure approach in Pontevedra (Galicia) with project such as the renaturalisation of the Gafos River.

Some of the EUKN Lab topics such as community practices, green infrastructure, and co-creation processes are very much liked to CoNECT project. The session concluded with closing remarks from Mart Grisel, Director of EUKN, emphasising the importance of connecting institutional and technical knowledge with local and citizen-driven initiatives like those promoted by CoNECT.