“Empowering Cities and Citizens” is an urban conference which looks at the hot-topics and wicked problems of our cities. It takes place on 6-7 November 2018 in Maassilo and at the Erasmus University Campus in Rotterdam.
Cities are the economic engines of growth worldwide. Well-managed cities make happy citizens. Join other urban professionals in the “Empowering Cities and Citizens” conference for an intense learning and co-creating experience. Gain urban insights that make cities work.
A preliminary programme frame can be found here, but for more in-depth information, we invite you to explore the three main content threads:
- People
- Places
- Know-how
Post Conference Report:
The ‘Empowering Cities & Citizens’ conference took place in the first week of November. The central conference team gravitated around cities and their dwellers. What did we mean with that? In a constantly urbanising world, many challenges and opportunities arise at every step. To answer these challenges, we strive to make cities vital, well-managed, liveable, sustainable and fair. We can only achieve that with professionals that are equipped to handle complex urban challenges. As urban specialists, we aim to stay learning constantly and to achieve synergies through co-creation. We aim for better outcomes to wicked urban problems by fostering collaboration and cross-fertilizing ideas. We are curious as to how cities and communities learn and co-create knowledge to meet current demand and we also look into how that might support the implementation of the SDGs.
To meet this end and to celebrate six decades of commitment to the quality of urban life, IHS, institute for housing and urban development studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam and its partners, organized an anniversary conference in Rotterdam.
We were honoured with over 340 registered participants to the first day of the conference at Maassilo and around 50 participants for the second day at our university campus location.
After six decades of empowering urban specialists and making cities work, IHS wants to connect the dots between our achievements and future ambitions, which are well-anchored in the needs of the urban world. This event was part of the 105-year anniversary of Erasmus University Rotterdam, and marks the first year of activity for the “Vital Cities and Citizens” (VCC) Erasmus initiative. The conference was organized in collaboration with Robbert Nesselaar, Founder and Managing Director of Citymar Consultancy and with the support of Erasmus Trustfonds and the Ministry of BZK.