Healthy Cities

Visionary nature based solutions for human centered cities. Sustainable transition to smart & future cities

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Background

In an increasingly urbanising world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economic growth hubs, as well as ensuring better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organisations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations (70% by 2050). Air pollution and urban exacerbation of heat islands is exacerbating. Nature will struggle to compensate in the future city, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting liveability.

Key project: VARCITIES

VARCITIES puts the citizen and the “human community” in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human centred cities. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing health and wellbeing of citizens (children, young people, middle age, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.

The Healthy Cities Helix is an international Open Innovation community of specialists in the fields of environment, smart cities, architecture, and related disciplines. The Helix was launched as a focus for impact and dissemination services in support of the VARCITIES project's ambition to contribute to the shaping of future cities by designing and developing nature-based (NBS) solutions.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 869505.

Helix Events

Past Event

Mon, Nov 15, 2021 09:00 AM - Wed, Nov 17, 2021 05:00 PM

The ASTEP. Multicycle, PRIME-VR2 and Varcities projects organised their respective Helix events took place 15-17 of November 2021 in Malmo, Sweden, as part of the first edition of TechConnect Europe. TechConnect Europe Innovation Conference & Expo is designed to connect top applied research and early-stage technologies from universities, labs and startups with industry and investors, end-users and prospectors. We look forward to attending the first TechConnect Europe Innovation Conference & Expo and we hope that you’ll visit us at the Crowdhelix exhibition stand for key insights, information and some friendly faces. The PRIME-VR2 project has been funded by the European Commission as part of the Horizon 2020 program, under the grant agreement 856998