What a fantastic day in Brussels! Full with knowledge sharing, good practices to increase urban resilience, and networking.
The seminar included an amazing mix of urban safety, security, and EU policy professionals. To celebrate the successful seminar and our outstanding speakers, here are a few notes from the event and the speakers themselves.
How genuine collaboration and citizen participation play their part
Since its birth, the SURE project has always believed in the power of collaboration. This storyline continues in 2023 and beyond now that the City of Tampere has joined the Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative.
Helena Monteiro, Coordinator and Project Support Specialist, at UNDRR and Making Cities Resilient 2030 mentions: “The Sure! project shows the power of strong stakeholder management to create safer events and better response during a crisis. Now, by joining the Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative, Tampere will leverage that knowledge in creating a holistic resilience strategy for the city, and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction is looking forward to working closely with Tampere and its partners.“
Moreover, collaboration should be extended to the community and the users of urban spaces. Dr. Ilari Karppi, a University Lecturer at Tampere University sites that it is important not to alienate a lot of users of urban space from the planning processes. It is elementary to understand and appreciate the next generation of cepted thinking, also known as Criminal Protection Through Environmental Design: safe communities and safe cities generated through participation, placemaking and the spirit of the community.”
Learning from effective strategies developed by other European cities
As the world continues to discover the potential of holistic urban planning, European cities such as Tampere, Piraeus, and Turin seem to be a few steps ahead in implementing smart, urban planning strategies.
One key partner in fostering a holistic approach to urban security and empowering cooperation is The European Forum for Urban Security (Efus). Executive Director of Efus, Elizabeth Johnston says wisely: “Open, safe and inclusive public spaces are what our European cities are defined by or wish to be defined by. Creating and preserving such shared public spaces is a challenge, that Efus member cities have been tackling for many years, in the face of diverse challenges. The network and such conferences as today enable each of our cities to progress in understanding and implementing effective strategies.“
Watch the full seminar recording
It is audiences like this that make events valuable. Thank you everyone online and offline for your unwavering attention throughout the program. Also, we greatly appreciate the speakers and panelists. They were nothing short of incredibly informative and interesting. And for this, we remain grateful.
You can now watch and share the full seminar recording on SURE YouTube Channel.
What’s next for SURE?
The SURE journey continues with even more collaboration and ways of supporting other cities across Europe.
Petri Nykänen, Director, Safety and Security, Business Tampere proudly announces: “Sure project has brought together various stakeholders for urban and event security to identify threats and to develop the technical solutions to address these threats. In the Sure project, we have developed a scalable model that enables the use of SURE project results in other European cities.”. This is exciting for us all and you can read more information on the model on the Business Tampere website.
Feel free to contact the SURE team if you’re interested in implementing SURE in your city.
Dr. Anniina Autero, Head of Project, City of Tampere
anniina.autero@tampere.fi
